There is no news yet on how Wrexham Council will react and interpret the recent Local Development Plan legal decision – with some councillors getting antsy for action.
Just before Christmas Cllr Marc Jones won a landmark Court of Appeal judgement against Wrexham County Borough Council, the Welsh Ministers, and a range of housing developers over Wrexham’s Local Development Plan (LDP).
Cllr Jones was the named person on the court documents, but the action was effectively taken as part of a cross party trio of councillors, Cllrs Hugh Jones and Cllr Mark Pritchard – supported by around 28 councillors.
As readers will have been long following, the LDP has been a thorny issue with multiple fraught votes again the plan in the Guildhall chamber – but it was finally adopted.
The recent legal decision dismissed the judicial review and effectively said Wrexham councillors did not actually have to adopt the LDP (the vote saw a boycott from councillors), and the previous votes against it were ‘not unlawful’.
With no more information public on what happens now, we asked Wrexham Council for an update.
Wrexham.com also queried around the planning meeting for January due last night, which is rumoured to have been cancelled directly as a result of the LDP verdict, although it is unclear what was problematic on any prospective agenda. The Planning Committee site visit slot listed for the 17th is also marked as ‘cancelled’. We asked if there were any other immediate impacts that the council could share.
In response the council pointed us to the holding statement just before Christmas that said the local authority was giving the judgement implications ‘careful consideration’ and a “more detailed statement will follow in due course”.
There have been calls from some councillors to act upon the latest LDP court decision, with several raising the question around if / how / when the LDP could be voted down again in the Guildhall chamber. Others have mooted different processes to achieve that aim, whereas word from a more Cardiff direction has hinted that an appeal may be in the offing – with a mid January deadline to lodge if that route is taken up via the Supreme Court.
Separately we are told the all councillor email list has been active on the topic since the decision, with a widely shared (and supported along previous split lines) festive email from Cllr Trevor Bates calling for an ‘immediate external inquiry’ into the whole LDP affair, with a request that the council ‘move forward’ and not ‘sit on our hands’.
It has also been revealed that since the verdict all councillors who supported the legal action were invited to a ‘celebratory’ beverage, with members of the Plaid Cymru group and a handful who attended from the Administration independent grouping enjoying a drink. Some attendees have described the evening ‘interesting’ and ‘surprisingly enjoyable’.
(Top pic: The Guildhall in warmer weather)
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