Last night the Epsom & Ewell Planning Committee:

• Approved 3 Buckland Road, the signs and flagpoles at the Racecourse Hotel and widening the passageway from the High Street to the Town Hall;
• Created 6 new tree preservation orders;
• Raised no objection to the felling of Leyland Cypress trees at 2nd Ewell scout HQ.

Last night the Epsom & Ewell Planning Committee:

• Approved 74 Bracken Path and 66 High Street, Epsom;
• Refused Land adjacent to 87/89 Amis Avenue and Land north of 2 Burnet Grove;
• Partly approved and partly refused the signs at the Racecourse Hotel;
• Deferred 72/74 Temple Road.

Today the county council’s planning committee voted 11 to 4 to refuse an application to build a ready-mix mortar plant in the sand quarry at North Park Farm, Godstone. Nothing too unusual there, you might think. Well no, except that the same committee had already considered the same application back in February and approved it!

Or did we? The members had actually voted 6 to 5 for refusal, but the voting was miss-counted and reported as 5 all, whereupon the chairman gave a casting vote in favour. When members objected that a majority had voted against it, on legal advice she ruled that as she had originally not voted, her casting vote was her first vote and now she would give a casting vote in favour.

After this was reported in the national press, the Council took the advice of a QC and decided that the previous decision was not valid.

The refusal was formally proposed and seconded by my Lib Dem colleagues Fiona White and Ian Beardsmore.

Last night the Epsom & Ewell Planning Committee:

• Approved Ewell Apiary, Ewell Court House Grotto and 51 Northey Avenue;
• Refused Hatch Furlong Nursery and 147 Hook Road;
• Deferred the signs on the Racecourse Hotel.