COUNCILLORS on the Rame Peninsula have upended their predecessors’ stance and voted to object to a high-profile planning application in their parish.

The proposal by farmer Chris Wilton for an agricultural dwelling close to Rame Head was approved by Cornwall Council last year, but a Judicial Review, mounted with £35,000 in crowdfunding, quashed the local authority decision.

The East Cornwall Planning Committee will be asked to re-run the decision-making process, for the same original application, when it meets on July 12.

In the meantime, the Maker with Rame Parish Council, which has nine new members following the May elections, was invited to submit a recommendation to the planning department.

After a two-hour meeting, which kept a lid – just – on some of the fraught emotions surrounding the plans, councillors voted by six to four to object to the planning application (PA20/03747).

Voting to object were Councillors Cathy Green, Jenny Fox, Wendy Ferguson, Anne-Marie Sutcliffe, John Weale and Jon Kidd. Voting to approve were Ian Murray, Sam Newcombe, Pete Ireland and Rebecca Lingard.

Ahead of the vote there was a chance for members of the public to speak, for Mr Wilton’s representative, architect Lucy Harman, to make a presentation and answer questions, and for councillors to discuss.

Speaking in opposition to the proposal was Malcolm Cross, a founder member of the Rame Protection Group, a signatory on the Judicial Review documents, and a driving force behind INFORM, the group under which seven of the parish council’s new members were voted in in May.

Tonny Steenhagen also spoke against the planning application, reminding those present that policies in the local plan relating to the granting of permission for development in an AONB, and the granting of permission on the grounds of need for an agricultural dwelling, were two separate things not to be weighed up against each other.

Last August’s approval of the planning application, had, in the words of the High Court Judge, breached planning legislation.

Speaking in favour were former councillor John Shepherd, who said that the farmer needed to live close to his animals in order to respond quickly, and that allowing accommodation for the farmer and his family would support a local business that had been run on the peninsula for generations.

Support

Resident Geoff Moore also spoke in favour of the applicant, arguing that much of the antipathy toward the scheme was personal, and stating that much of the support garnered for the Rame Protection Group had come from those who mistakenly believed the proposed development to be “on Rame Head”.

Architect Lucy Harman referred to the report from the County Land Agent, which stated a need for two houses to sustain the farm.

She pointed to the fact that much of Cornwall falls within an AONB, and addressed concerns about the size of the proposed house, which would, at 10.9m by 9.5m, “not be a huge mansion”.

Cllr Weale asked if the Mount Edgcumbe estate had been asked to provide another dwelling and made the point that the land in question is not part of the farm; the agricultural tie would be to the occupant’s employment, and asked what would happen should the future occupancy of the house change, to which Ms Harman replied that there would have to be another planning application.

Cllr Green disputed a map which had been submitted to the council by the architect and there was much discussion about the height of the finished building, whether or not it would sit on the ridge line, and how visible it would be from vantage points on land and at sea.

She described the proposal as having the ‘most negative visual impact’ – but Cllr Lingard, who had walked around the site the day before, disagreed, and said the building would “sit in a bowl” on the plot.

Cllr Green said that most of the councillors present were new members: they had had two days of planning training, and the key things she took away from that training were that councillors should base their decisions on material considerations, not taking personal factors into account, and to consider planning officer guidance.

Tensions rose between councillors over the issue of declarations of interest.

At the start of the meeting, Cllr Sutcliffe had read a statement explaining that she had joined the Rame Protection Group and supported the judicial review campaign, but said that she intended to listen carefully to the arguments brought forward in support of the application, and did not have a pre-determined view.

Later in the meeting Cllr Green claimed that Cllr Ireland had been part of a Facebook group in support of the application, a group via which Cllr Sutcliffe had been personally insulted. Cllr Ireland said he had not been associated with this group since the election campaign.

The chairman said that almost everyone in the room could be said to have an association of some kind or other with the applicant or the plan.

He had received advice from Cornwall Council that declarations of interest should be made if an individual stood to derive any benefits from the proposal.

Absent from the meeting was Cornwall Councillor Kate Ewert, who was at St Germans Parish Council. She has declared an interest on the basis that she knows the applicant’s wife and is also on the AONB partnership.

Cllr Ewert said: “This application has caused much division within a very close-knit community. I support the parish council’s democratic process for revisiting the application in an open and transparent?manner, and my hope is the community can come back together in a positive way."