Donna Clayton, a Planning Officer with Shepway District Council owns a grade II listed cottage in Lyminge to which she made several alterations before placing her home on the market.
At a date after she had carried out the alterations she thought she should have applied for planning permission so approached a colleague and asked for advice, during the course of the discussion it was agreed she should and that she should now apply for retrospective permission.
Alistair Stewart, Chief Executive of Shepway District Council is quoted as saying “Donna Clayton has always been aware of the rules and is a good officer. When it comes to assessing Listed Building Consent, the guidelines are open to interpretation. Donna did not believe she needed consent for the minor work carried out and I am confident that she interpreted the rules correctly…”
Are the rules on Listed Building Consent “open to interpretation?” If they are it is only by the planning officers not the applicant who is in a position to make that interpretation and in this case the Planning Officer and Applicant were one in the same. If an applicant who was not a Planning Officer made a similar interpretation would they have received planning consent, from historical articles in the Folkestone newspapers the answer as to be no! There are a number of cases where owners of listed or buildings in a conservation area have carried out work and been ordered to reinstate.
The Planning Regulations, we are told, are very clear and before you commence alterations particularly on listed buildings or in a conservation area you should seek advice and if necessary consent as breaches of planning regulations can lead to an unlimited fine or up to a year in prison.
On the Monday soon after this matter was reported in the Folkestone Herald the planning committee sat to hear Donna Clayton’s retrospective planning application on her grade II listed home for work she had already carried out. What was unusual about this application is it was from a Planning Officer employed by Shepway District Council in front of a Planning Committee that normally only sites on a Tuesday every third week.
There may be many reasons why a Planning Committee stat and heard this particular application on a Monday, there may be many very good reasons why this application appears to have been granted on a Nod and a Wink. There are also many exceedingly better reasons why this application should have been sent elsewhere for independent adjudication.
It should have been sent to another Council independent of Shepway or at least to Lyminge Parish Council for them to make the decision or to the Magistrates Court for them to decide.
Mrs Clayton is an employee of Shepway District Council and as an employee in the planning department we the Council Tax Payer could suspect nepotism in respect that the Planning Committee sat possibly a day earlier than they would normally sit or even three weeks and a day earlier than normal and that planning permission was granted.
We should also be concerned that an experienced planning officer made a mistake, that no censure appears to have been made, and that this minor mistake reflects on the quality of staff employed by Shepway District Council.
We should also be suspicious of Donna Clayton’s intentions; we know she intended to sell her home once the improvements had been carried out, she is a very experienced planning officer, as confirmed by Alistair Stewart, Chief Executive of Shepway District Council, was it Donna Clayton’s intention to provide Shepway District Council Planning Committee with a fait a comply.
As a very experienced planning officer Donna Clayton would have known she may have difficulty selling her home if the buyer’s surveyor or solicitor were concerned about the recent alterations to the property and searches revealed that planning consent had not been granted. Without an independent investigation we will never know whether Donna Clayton was taking advantage of her position and colleagues to achieve planning consent and a sale at any cost or it was a genuine mistake.
Shepway District Council, for the sake of propriety, should have suspended Donna Clayton and sent the matter to Folkestone Magistrates Court for their independent view.
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