Debt-ridden Surrey council spends £250k on planning application that its own councillors have rejected

At a Surrey council, government inspectors have been sent in due to concerns over extreme debt and borrowing. The council spent almost £250,000 on a planning application - only for its own councillors to reject it.

Spelthorne Borough Council wanted to redevelop the White House site in Kingston Road, Ashford, and build 17 homes - but its efforts were thrown out because the proposed designs were of a “poor standard”, “cramped” with a “ poor level of amenity space”.

Council officers had recommended the plans be approved, “subject to the completion of an appropriate agreement between Knowle Green Estates Limited and Spelthorne Borough Council”, despite, the meeting hearing, there would be no affordable housing on the site as it was not financially viable.

This angered many of the councillors sitting in the August 2023 meeting who felt that, if the local authority would not provide affordable housing how could it demand the private sector does the same? The council would later say, although it was not mentioned in the meeting, nor in papers presented at the time, that it planned to approach Homes England for a grant to allow the homes to be made available at affordable rates - after permission was granted.

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The council also argued that approving the plans would boost the local area via a £25,000 grant from the developer but this was quickly shut down with councillors pointing out the money was just being moved from one Spelthorne Borough Council pot to another.

The plans were so unpopular with members that it was rejected by 13 votes to zero. The only councillor to abstain was Councillor Lawrence Nichols, who had to due to him being a board member of Knowle Green Estates. The fiasco has cost the council £244,452 in internal and external costs according to a Freedom of Information request seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The council’s financial position is already stretched with Government inspectors having already been sent in as concern grows over its ability to deal with its extreme debt and borrowing. A spokesperson for Spelthorne Borough Council said: “The council is subject to the same process, consideration, and scrutiny in respect of determination of its planning applications as any other applicant, meaning successful determination of any Council application is not guaranteed.

“There are many councillors at Spelthorne who sit on several committees and declarations regarding conflicts of interest are made and recorded in accordance with the council’s constitution at the start of the relevant committee meetings. Attendance at committee meetings, participating in debates and voting by the councillors with interests in relation to an item on the agenda is governed by the council’s constitution and breaches are investigated by the council’s monitoring officers.

“All budgets whether revenue or capital are considered by and approved by full council or the relevant committee holding responsibility for the specific area of work. In the case of this planning application, it would fall within the remit of the council’s corporate policy and resources committee.”

Asked why the council would submit a plan so far out of keeping with its own planning policies, as raised during the August 2023 meeting, the council said: “The council had submitted the application for the affordable housing scheme in its capacity as a landowner - any planning application submitted in line with planning policy does not guarantee that planning consent would be forthcoming, and each application is considered on its own merit.

“To clarify there was no conflict of interest on Cllr Nichols behalf, as this was a council application not a Knowle Green Estates Ltd application. The applicant has demonstrated that the provision of affordable housing is not viable in this particular case and the Local Planning Authority’s independent review has confirmed this position."

They added: “The development sub committee authorised Spelthorne Borough Council, as developer, to submit a planning scheme for 17 private units that would ultimately be constructed as 100 per cent affordable homes. The planning stage is only one part of achieving this.

“What matters to Spelthorne Borough Council, as developer and Knowle Green Estates, as investor, is their post construction objective of maximising grants to create financially viable 100 per cent affordable homes. Therefore, the planning stage was based on maximising the number of private units.

“Once planning is obtained, the council would have maximised the Homes England grant available on all qualifying private units to convert to affordable homes. For the White House development, it was all 17 units. To reiterate, this was the strategy that the development sub committee approved from the beginning.

“The Local Planning Authority (in this case Spelthorne Borough Council) in their independent role will always judge the application based on the facts presented before them and not look ahead at the strategy that was in place to develop the homes into affordable housing, as what steps the Council take post planning consent is not a planning matter.”

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