Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has rejected a request from St Ives residents to review the decision to allow a hotel to be built on the site of a care home.
Andrew George (second left) is pictured outside the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government with campiagners (left to right) Shelley Thornton, Michelle Curnow, Brian Selman, and Damon Thompson
Campaigners took their message to London two weeks ago, handing over a weighty protest file and letters of objection at the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government, which is headed by Raynor.
But Whitbread’s planning appeal win, to build a new Premier Inn hotel in St Ives, will stand.
“The planning system is far too lopsided,” said St Ives MP Andrew George, who visited the ministry with the campaigners. “Developers get a second chance. Communities, like St Ives on this occasion, which must suffer the consequences, do not.
“That’s why I (and my party) have long advocated there should be a balanced third party right of appeal, when permission is granted which contradicts local policy, as happened here, or when substantial local opposition meets a threshold of planning law reasons.”
He added: “Developments which add to the problems of an area, like this will, (after all, St Ives already has an abundance of holiday accommodation and too few care home places and homes for locals) can legitimately, in law, keep applying and appealing in the system ’til they get their way. The community is just left to endure the consequences without redress, unless of course they go to expensive judicial review.
“If anything, the deputy PM is currently pushing through new law to make the situation even worse. There’s little left for the community to do now.”
