Four hours of debate over Newbury’s proposed Eagle Quarter ended with councillors referring the matter to another committee.
Councillors at West Berkshire Council’s western area planning committee’s October 3 meeting debated the long-running issue, listened to and questioned several public speakers as well as Hugo Haig, director of developer Lochailort, before narrowly passing a motion to hand the matter to the council’s district planning committee.
The meeting heard the next available date for that is November 13.
The decision sparked dismay among some at Thursday’s (October 3) meeting.
Cllr Clive Hooker told councillors: “I am most disappointed in the outcome of this meeting tonight. We sit on this committee to address difficult planning applications. That’s what we do. This is why they come to this committee.
“If we abdicate our responsibility and every time something comes in, we want to kick the can down the road for somebody else to make the decision, I think it’s despicable to be honest.”
Cllr Antony Amirtharaj said to debate and not vote was to deny members their right.
He went on: “Most importantly I am concerned about the people who have attended this meeting. They have sat here from six o’clock to 10 o’clock, presented their views and they don’t know what the decision is going to be.”
He suggested the district planning committee should watch the debate online and not have the same discussion.
He added: “We participated in the whole discussion thinking that there will be a decision made, and then we finally come up to 10 o’clock and say that we will be moving it to the district committee, this is not fair at all.
“There should at least be some respite for the public not to come in and do the same thing again with the district committee.”
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