| Topic: | Re:Re:Advertising on Boulton House, Brentford | |
| Posted by: | Adam Beamish | |
| Date/Time: | 08/10/12 08:02:00 |
| Admittedly the legislation has changed somewhat in the last year or so and Section 143 of the Localism Act 2011 does allow defined financial benefits to be taken into account in the determination of planning applications "where material to the application". In this specific case however, there is one huge issue which prevents financial benefits from been considered, and that is that Section 143 is only applicable to applications for planning permission, not for express advertisement consent (the Boulton House application was for the latter). Indeed the Officer's committee report makes absolutely no reference to Section 143/local finance considerations, presumably for exactly that reason, and if you read the minutes of the SDC meeting the Legal Officer also confirmed this point to Members. Hence why I believe it may be difficult for any legal challenge to succeed - Officers made it clear that financial considerations were not relevant, and the reasons Members cited for supporting the application broadly focused upon visual amenity considerations, which are material. Whether I actually personally believe those reasons to be genuine is another matter altogether as my own hunch, purely based on a reading of the minutes and the background, is that some Members disregarded the legal advice entirely. |