Fri Feb 17, 2017 4:53 pm
#1519882
From the Northern Echo.
A GOVERNMENT inspector has delivered a blow to a council embroiled in a bizarre saga over a grass airstrip.
Hambleton District Council, which has been repeatedly condemned for losing planning control over Bagby Airfield, near Thirsk - a matter that has created bitter divisions in nearby villages - has had its latest enforcement actions rejected following a public inquiry and been ordered to pay undisclosed costs to its owner, lawyer Martin Scott
Campaigners against the airfield said the decision reflected the authority's "incompetence", while those backing the airfield said it was time the council, which has previously been criticised for spending large sums of taxpayers' money on battling the airfield, stopped wasting the public purse.
The council served the airfield with enforcement actions - claiming part of a taxiway had been widened by 90cm and that two 13,000-litre fuel tanks attached to agricultural trailers should be removed – in 2014.
Mr Scott launched an appeal against the actions, triggering the fourth public inquiry in six years over the site.
Recent years have seen the authority's actions lead to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance being forced to stop using the airfield as its North Yorkshire base, members of Thirkleby Parish Council resigning en masse and Hambleton being ordered by an ombudsman to apologise and pay residents damages for causing years of distress by failing to control planning.
Following a three-day hearing in January, planning inspector John Murray quashed the authority's latest attempt to exert control - a bid to remove the revenue-generating fuel tanks - concluding they were “not buildings”.
He also overturned an order to remove a strip of Tarmac from a taxyway, after finding confusion surrounded how it had been measured and that the enforcement plan did not include any measurements or dimensions.
The inquiry report stated a Hambleton planning officer could “not explain” how the area alleged to have been widened was calculated and was not aware of any visit to the site, or any file notes from the visit. It said “on balance of probability” there had not been a visit to the site to measure the taxiway..
The report stated it remained unproven the taxiway had been widened, adding: “The process by which the notice plan was drawn up is somewhat mysterious.”
Mr Scott said it was time to draw a line under the issue. He said: “Ten years of fighting appeal after appeal has cost an unbelievable amount of money.”
A GOVERNMENT inspector has delivered a blow to a council embroiled in a bizarre saga over a grass airstrip.
Hambleton District Council, which has been repeatedly condemned for losing planning control over Bagby Airfield, near Thirsk - a matter that has created bitter divisions in nearby villages - has had its latest enforcement actions rejected following a public inquiry and been ordered to pay undisclosed costs to its owner, lawyer Martin Scott
Campaigners against the airfield said the decision reflected the authority's "incompetence", while those backing the airfield said it was time the council, which has previously been criticised for spending large sums of taxpayers' money on battling the airfield, stopped wasting the public purse.
The council served the airfield with enforcement actions - claiming part of a taxiway had been widened by 90cm and that two 13,000-litre fuel tanks attached to agricultural trailers should be removed – in 2014.
Mr Scott launched an appeal against the actions, triggering the fourth public inquiry in six years over the site.
Recent years have seen the authority's actions lead to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance being forced to stop using the airfield as its North Yorkshire base, members of Thirkleby Parish Council resigning en masse and Hambleton being ordered by an ombudsman to apologise and pay residents damages for causing years of distress by failing to control planning.
Following a three-day hearing in January, planning inspector John Murray quashed the authority's latest attempt to exert control - a bid to remove the revenue-generating fuel tanks - concluding they were “not buildings”.
He also overturned an order to remove a strip of Tarmac from a taxyway, after finding confusion surrounded how it had been measured and that the enforcement plan did not include any measurements or dimensions.
The inquiry report stated a Hambleton planning officer could “not explain” how the area alleged to have been widened was calculated and was not aware of any visit to the site, or any file notes from the visit. It said “on balance of probability” there had not been a visit to the site to measure the taxiway..
The report stated it remained unproven the taxiway had been widened, adding: “The process by which the notice plan was drawn up is somewhat mysterious.”
Mr Scott said it was time to draw a line under the issue. He said: “Ten years of fighting appeal after appeal has cost an unbelievable amount of money.”