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Gedling borough taxpayers to fork out ‘significant sum’ after developer appealed council’s nursing home decision

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Gedling borough taxpayers have been lumped with a “significant sum” after a developer successfully appealed the council’s decision to reject its nursing home plans.

Gedling Borough Council rejected plans to convert Ernehale Lodge Nursing Home in Arnold into 19 apartments at a planning committee meeting in September last year.

Councillors argued the development required 16 car park spaces, rather than the 13 that had been proposed by developer Mr Waseem Shafiq, of Arnold Point Limited.

They said the proposal did not provide adequate off-street parking, and considered the development would “cause unacceptable issues of on-street parking to the detriment of highway safety”.

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However the developer appealed the decision to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate, which ruled in Mr Shafiq’s favour in April.

The inspector said the committee failed to substantiate its position that the shortfall of three parking spaces is an issue of such weight as to be singularly decisive, and that it had instead based its decision on “vague, inaccurate assertions not supported by objective evidence”.

During a planning committee meeting on Wednesday (July 16), councillors noted that full costs must now be awarded to the developer.

Cllr Paul Wilkinson (Lab), the committee’s vice-chair, said: “We got ourselves into an unnecessary mess with this.

“The committee received clear advice from the officers, including the advice there was the potential for costs to be awarded against us, but in its wisdom the committee decided to ignore that advice.

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“I was one of those that supported the recommendation to grant, not happily, but because I could see there were no valid planning reasons to refuse the application. I was very wary of the danger of costs being awarded against this council.

“Very unnecessarily, this has cost us a significant sum of money, and I think it shows we need to take great attention to some things we are being told by officers, and when we are given clear guidance on something, and the potential consequences, we need to take note of that.”

The Local Democracy Reporting Service has submitted a Freedom of Information request to the council in a bid to obtain the full cost amount.

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