– because the council had far exceeded the eight-week time limit within which it was obliged to make a decision.
The borough’s planning officers recommended that councillors conclude that they would have given the go-ahead to the plans – subject to a raft of conditions – and so for the council not to contest the appeal. Committee member Will Adams said that he would have now backed approval had the matter still been South Ribble’s hands – because the ability to impose conditions gave him and his colleagues “greater power” to control the functioning of the business than by rejecting it and risking their decision being overturned on appeal.
His colleague Cllr Mary Green added that it did not “gel well” with her that there had not been “any effort whatsoever to discuss [matters] with residents, or at least appease the people who live nearby”.