Public Inquiry Blog

Since 18th Feb when we were granted Rule 6 status we have been busy preparing our statement of case which was submitted to the planning inspectorate on 11th March. On the same day, Centros announced that they will not be defending their scheme at the public inquiry where for the first time it would be scrutinised in detail. In their familiar display of disingenuity, Centros claim that their development stands “on its own merits” whilst also saying that it would cost them up to £1 million to defend it at the public inquiry. They are now counting on Lancaster City Council to defend the plans for them using local taxpayers money. We think this is a disgraceful situation and shows the extent to which our council is in the developers pockets.

On 20th March we received a big bundle from the planning inspectorate containing the statements of case from the other main participants as well as copies of individual objection letters to the planning inspectorate. We have yet to count these other objections from individuals, businesses and other organisations but they amount to over 2 Kg in weight which explodes the centros claim that opposition to their plans is minimal. You can find copies our statement of case as well as those from other main participants in our inquiry archive. SAVE has not yet submitted theirs as their deadline for submission is April 1st but they issued this press release on 13th March. The covering letter from the planning inspectorate invites us to comment on the other statements of case by 8th April so if you have any comments please contact us using our contact page.

We have also recently discovered that several planning policies which stood in the way of the Centros plans were discarded or changed by council planners shortly before the planning committee met in October last year to decide on the Centros scheme. You can see what they have done in their Strikethrough Local Plan published in Sept 08.