Signature issue halts decision on controversial plan to build 230 homes on greenbelt land

Debate about controversial plans to build up to 230 houses at a Greetland site was halted with a question mark over the legal standing of a key planning application form signature.

Calderdale planning councillors were expecting to come to a decision over Keyland Developments Ltd’s outline application to build the homes at land to the south west of Ellistones Lane.

But one of the objectors addressing the committee, former councillor Christine Prashad, really put the cat among the pigeons when she spoke about her concerns about the application form.

Before the meeting scores of objectors lobbied councillors on their way in to Halifax Town Hall.

After planning officers outlined the proposals, which they recommended to Planning Committee members they should be mindful to permit subject to legal agreement and planning conditions, members quizzed planning, highways and environmental health officers for an hour on aspects of the proposals.

Coun Katie Kimber, Coun Andrew Varley, Coun Jamie Furlong, Coun Paul Dale, Coun Ashley Evans, Coun Gordon Thorpe and Chair Coun Steve Mycroft asked questions including about highways concerns, also raised by residents.

Highways officers responded that impacts had been modelled and mitigations made, concluding the impact of extra traffic generated by the new housing would be minimal.

Objector Lynsey Ashton told the committee hydraulic modelling did not exist for the Black Brook watercourse, whose flood risk raised by the Environment Agency after Calderdale’s Local Plan had been adopted.

Comprehensive drainage design was also still required, she said, and air quality assessment, another impact, was inadequate.

Ms Prashad spoke next and said there was a critical procedural defect which meant the committee could not safely determine the application.

She drew the committee’s attention to the two declaration signatures at the bottom of the final page of the planning application, one relating to the agent, from the company Spawforths, for the application.

But the second signature was the general declaration of another agent – and there was an issue.

Ms Prashad said: “The general declaration is the ultimate document which legally binds the applicant to entire development and signifies that the person signing has viewed all the documents submitted with the application form and has verified any representations with regard to ownership of the land.”

The signatures are dated and, continued Ms Prashad: “However, at the point of submission of this application the person was not an employee of the agents Spawforths and was therefore not an authorised signatory, having left the firm some three months prior to the date of submission.”

Ms Prashad said a former employee who possessed “zero capacity, legal standing or constitutional authority is not able to bind the applicant company to the statutory declaration.”

All planning applications required an authorised signature at the point of submission to be considered legally made, she said.

“Therefore this application contains an unauthorised signature and cannot be retroactively amended as the core declaration was invalid from Day One.

“I would point out it would be unlikely for any of the 24 employees at Spawforths to be unaware that the person had left the company and therefore this procedural defect cannot be attributed to a clerical error,” she said.

Ms Prashad said a deferral of the application would not satisfy legislation provisions nor legal rulings quoted in case law as this “would put the council in a vulnerable position if it were to proceed to Judicial Review.”

She told the committee she had a copy of the employee’s LinkedIn account which showed her employment history.

A representative for the agents confirmed the colleague in question has left the company but he would have to check the dates.

A short adjournment was allowed by the committee but the agent returned saying they had not yet been able to secure the relevant information.

Coun Mycroft proposed the committee adjourn the application to a future date based on the information they had just received and after taking legal advice from the council’s legal team.

The adjournment was to allow time for the applicant to resolve the procedural issue with the declaration on the application form, he said, and members agreed to defer.