“A bit of a crazy time” is how I described Ridgeway Farm a few weeks ago. Well, it lurches on and gets itself increasingly bogged down. Not only did Thames Water originally object (which the Appeal Inspector dismissed) they later retracted their objection yet have now reinstated it. The Shaw Residents’ Association (SRA) has more detail in their issues and position statements.
In addition, Scottish and Southern Electricity is currently maintaining its objection too. Not only that,
the Environment Agency is maintaining its objection because of the poor drainage strategy, and Network Rail also continues to object. This is all against a backdrop of concerns about the width of the Spine Road and allocated parking spaces (see the SRA web site for further detail) which Wiltshire Council officers have still to answer satisfactorily.
Since the two current applications were not “called in” so that they could be decided by councillors, they are now being decided by Wiltshire Council officers. This is fine for small applications such as household ones ~ not easy to get those wrong. But I would have thought that all big contentious applications with far-reaching consequences should automatically be brought before our elected councillors for scrutiny.
This certainly seems to be the case for Ridgeway Farm which is now just a mess.
