By Huw Oxburgh, BBC-funded Local Democracy Reporter
Wealden District Council has paid out more than three-quarters of a million pounds in appeal costs since January 2021.
The single largest payout resulted from the council’s decision to refuse the 700-home Mornings Mill development on farmland at Willingdon, Eastbourne, which was approved on appeal.
One Labour councillor said the total was the equivalent to the cost of running a leisure centre for five years.
The figures were revealed as part of a report discussed by the council’s overview and scrutiny committee here today (May 20), which set out the costs incurred by the council as a result of planning appeals between January 2021 and April 2024.
It revealed how £756,262 had been paid out in cost awards during this period — money the council had been ordered to pay to developers as a result of ‘unreasonable behaviour incurring unnecessary or wasted expense’.
This figure resulted from just nine appeal decisions, with the Mornings Mill amount being the largest at £330,000.
This decision to refuse permission for the development was overturned after a three-day appeal hearing here in September 2022 to which the council did not send legal representation.
Cabinet member for planning Ian Tysh (Green) said: “The total amount of costs paid in the period was £756,000 and a bit; £330,000 of that — or about 45 per cent — was Mornings Mill.
“That is an unusual application, an unusually big application, with a chequered history through both planning committees [and] a decision taken, I think, in as much a cry of rage as on strict planning grounds. That is not being critical, just as I perceived it as the time.”
The report says there were a total of 337 appeals lodged with the council during this period, most of which (261) were resolved through written representations. The report says the costs incurred in these cases are difficult to verify, as they simply involved officer time to process.
However, the report goes on to identify how £466,200 was spent on preparing defences in 13 of these appeals, including the nine which resulted in costs being paid to developers. This figure includes the costs of legal advice, venue hire, consultants and officer time, the report said.
Part of this figure was spent on successful appeal defences, such as the 290-home Bird In Eye Farm development near Framfield.
When combined with the cost awards, the report puts the final and full budget impact from these appeals at £1,222,462.
Cllr Daniel Manvell (Lab), above, said: “I obviously understand that planning committees have a difficult job to do; balancing people in their wards and local residents [with] what they get in front of them.
“But, from the publicly available information, I think Uckfield Leisure Centre was costing £130,000 for the council. That is five years of running Uckfield Leisure Centre that we’ve wasted in costs.
“We make these decisions, not easily. But the idea that a simple decision at planning committee can have such huge ramifications, I think is worth bearing in mind for everyone.”
The report goes on to note how the council had been able to reduce the costs claimed by developers in some cases. For example, the developers behind Mornings Mill had initially sought £405,000 from the council, with this figure eventually reduced to £330,000.
The report said the claims are not automatically paid, with officers scrutinising and rejecting claims as unsubstantiated where relevant. The combined claims came to a total of £866,262 before this scrutiny took place, the report says.
Head of planning Stacey Robins said: “The one constant … across the analysis period for costs, both to just stand up a defence but also unreasonable behaviour, is an out-of-date local plan. Of course we are moving to correct that, to provide certainty; certainty for residents but [also] certainty for developers.
“It is vital that we move as fast as possible to get through that process, because you can see the number of, dare I say it, chancer applications fall away, because they will be on the wrong side of the line and not allocated.
“We will be in a much stronger position sat in front of an inspector defending our strategy, your strategy, where we want to see growth and where we don’t.”
