Oflog: Old Sarum Airfield developer slams Wiltshire Council

The criticism comes after Wiltshire Council's planning efficiency was found to have performed significantly worse than other councils across the country between financial years 2020 and 2022.

According to Government data the council decided 82.3 per cent of major planning applications on time.

This was below the country's median of 89.8 per cent as well as the median of Wiltshire's similar local authorities which was 84.2 per cent.

Wiltshire Council also had a larger percentage of major planning applications being overturned on appeal at 4.7 per cent compared to the 1.4 per cent England median.

The local authority was behind the national median on its percentage of non-major planning applications decided on time.

Grenville Hodge, director of Old Sarum Airfield, said he was forced to withdraw his initial 2015 planning application as Wiltshire Council had not reached a decision after two years.

Grenville Hodge. (Image: Contributed)

Mr Hodge described the council as being "unresponsive and obstructive over many issues" after he was refused planning permission for a new application on August 14.

Read more: ​Old Sarum Airfield plans refused by Wiltshire Council

Earlier this year the Times reported the 'worst-performing councils in England' using data submitted to the Office for Local Government by 318 councils.

Wiltshire Council ranked 298th out of 318 overall which means only 5.3 per cent of local authorities performed worse than Wiltshire.

The authorities were given a ranking for five different areas of business including finance, waste collection and management, roads, social care and efficiency of dealing with planning applications.

Mr Hodge said: "It is no wonder that Wiltshire Council rank 301 out of 318 for planning performance in the recent Oflog league tables, putting them in the lowest five per cent of local authorities in England."

FEATURE: 'Thousands of livelihoods at risk' if Old Sarum Airfield appeal is unsuccessful

Councillor Richard Clewer, leader of Wiltshire Council, and chief executive Terence Herbert disputed the assessment and expressed "grave concern" when the Times article was published.

Richard Clewer. (Image: Wiltshire Council)

In an open letter, the pair said their faith in Oflog had been "dented" and claimed Wiltshire Council was in fact "one of the country's highest performing local authorities".

“If Oflog is ever to attain an authoritative voice, it needs to ensure that when its work is cited, there is an explicit acknowledgement of the limitations of current data sets, the significant time lag, and forthcoming changes to a range of performance measures," the letter read.

"This should sit alongside the acknowledgement of differing funding levels and the importance of local context."

The latest Old Sarum Airfield planning application was registered in September 2023 and it should have been determined within 13 weeks, on December 11.

However, most of Wiltshire Council's officers hadn't written a report by December, according to Mr Hodge.

"We didn't get the conservation officer's report until June 2024 and that was the most significant issue," he said.

"Even Historic England sent their observations as they were required to do as a statutory consultee early in 2024.

"So it's been a very difficult process working with Wiltshire Council. We weren't surprised when we ended up last month and they refused it on heritage grounds, on highways grounds, on a very obscure reason shooting from a pistol range and also on air quality."

Wiltshire councillor Nick Botterill. (Image: Wiltshire Council)

Councillor Nick Botterill, Wiltshire's cabinet member for development management, said: “With a refusal of planning permission there is always likely to be disappointment, but the extension of the statutory time period for planning applications with the agreement of the applicant was introduced by central Government some years ago.

"It is a normal and accepted part of the planning application process, particularly on major and complex planning applications where it is quite normal for application to take many months to deal with due to the significant amount of detailed information required, and ongoing exchanges of additional information between the parties.

"This process also benefits the applicant, as they are able to clarify issues which would otherwise result in the council potentially refusing an application due to insufficient details."

The Government's website states that where a planning application takes longer than the statutory period to decide, and an extended period has not been agreed with the applicant, policy dictates that a decision should be made within 26 weeks.

Cllr Botterill said the Oflog figures are "out of date" and "reflect past performance", adding: "We have recently invested an extra £1m into our planning teams to deliver a first-class planning service with faster decision-making and excellent customer service.

"Our performance is now much better as a result of this investment.”