Councillors have backed a private independently-led inquiry into how “garbage” persuaded them to drop their defence of a Derbyshire housing appeal.
At a Derbyshire Dales District Council meeting this month, members voted to launch the inquiry into advice they received over the 423-home Matlock Wolds housing appeal from William Davis Homes.
A closed-doors meeting, of which no minutes have yet been published, was held in January at which councillors say they were given “cast-iron” legal advice that the Wolds development would not be defensible at appeal and to drop the authority’s planned interventions.
The resulting vote, which has not been detailed, saw majority – but not unanimous – support in dropping the defence.
Following the resulting public inquiry, Government inspector Joanna Gilbert rejected the appeal from William Davis Homes, with campaigners the Wolds Action Group – which includes a number of councillors – providing the sole source of defence.
Julie Atkin, of the action group, said: “I welcome any investigation into how the council came to capitulate on all of the officer’s recommended reasons for refusal in the face of the appeal.”
Matlock residents said the council inquiry needed to be impartial in order to be credible and not “self-limiting”.
They said the council cannot be seen to be “marking its own homework” and questioned whether a change in leadership was also required due to “reputational damage”.
The authority is currently led by Cllr Steve Flitter, Liberal Democrat, as part of a “progressive alliance” of Lib Dems, the Green Party, Labour and a non-aligned councillor – Cllr Peter O’Brien.
Steve Capes, the council’s director of place and economy, said: “While the inspector’s decision earlier this year was very welcome it did not provide all the answers and indeed it left the door open to a future possible planning application for this site and is important that councillors and residents are in the best position possible to deal with any such application.”
The council was informed that the plan was to spend £15,000 on a task and finish group, with an independent person to be appointed as chairman, with the remit to be able to expand the inquiry within limits.
That process would not be held publicly, despite opposition from residents and the Conservative group, due to concerns that this would give developers potential ammunition.
Cllr David Hughes, Liberal Democrat, said: “We are in the dark, members of the public are in the dark. If counsel says you can’t win you go with that position, so we as councillors do not know what evidence was brought to them to enable them to come to that decision.”
Cllr Sue Hobson, Conservative, said the appeal had cost the community group £15,000 to finance and yet the council’s non-defence had cost £192,000.
She said: “Shine the light in the dark corners. Everyone wants a fully independent inquiry.
“It should never have been behind closed doors. They will not be fobbed off by another closed-doors inquiry.”
Kerry France, the council’s solicitor, said the legal advice given to the authority cannot currently be published publicly due to confidentiality which would need to be waived.
Cllr Gareth Gee, Derbyshire First, said: “The progressive alliance made a choice to desert its public in this issue and I kind of understand the situation they were in because they were doing it for the right reasons at the time, but in the end the public won the appeal.
“Don’t the public just need an apology and we don’t need to do this. The fact is, the Wolds development was dismissed by the inspector and the WAG deserve a lot of credit. Where are we going with all of this?”
Cllr Nick Whitehead, Green Party, said: “I think it is really unfair because we were presented at that meeting with cast-iron legal advice.
“We have always tried to be behind residents but when we are presented at a closed meeting with strict legal advice to follow it is very difficult to understand how we could have gone against that.
“The legal advice just seems like garbage in hindsight now we need to uncover that.
“Need to look to try and waive whatever we need to waive so we can open it up
“I voted in favour based on the advice I was given and I would like to know how I was misled. This isn’t about cheap political point-scoring, it is about transparency and honesty. More than half of this council were completely misled and as a result we have misrepresented our public.”
Cllr Flitter said: “I am struggling to see why we should apologise if it is known that we did things for the right reason but I do agree that I don’t see an end to this.
“I feel like many that we were let down, not by officers of this council, but by the professionals that we bought in.”
He said the decision was “devastating” and was “forced upon us”.
Cllr Joanne Linthwaite, Liberal Democrat, said: “The hardest part about being in public service is having to tell people the inconvenient truth and the fact remains that as long as the Wolds is on the Local Plan and as long as we do not meet our five-year housing supply, the Wolds is still at risk, make no mistake about it.
“Anyone who is still peddling the myth that taking the Wolds of the Local Plan is the answer to our problems is doing an enormous disservice to the people of Matlock in raising expectations that cannot be met.”
A vote for a private inquiry led by an independent chairman was passed by a vote of 16 in favour and nine against.
