Conwy council chairman apologises for deferring building conversion application

Conwy Council’s planning committee chairman apologised before deferring an application to convert a building to flats after some councillors failed to turn up to a site visit.
North Wales Housing Association’s application to convert the Brookes Tarpaulins building on Bangor Road, Penmaenmawr, into 20 affordable flats was scheduled to be discussed at this week’s planning committee meeting at Bodlondeb.
But chairman Cllr Austin Roberts instead proposed the application was deferred after being advised by Conwy’s legal team to delay the debate, due to councillors not turning up for a site visit ahead of the meeting.
Site visits give councillors the chance to see a location so they better understand an application before making a more informed decision.
Speaking at the meeting, chairman Cllr Austin Roberts explained and apologised to those attending the chamber to speak in favour or against the application.
He said. “After some legal advice, I propose we defer this item to the next meeting, and the reason being is that the legal department has received complaints about the way the site visits were carried out, and because of this we feel it should be deferred so that we can have another site visit, and hopefully this time there will be more councillors on the committee in attendance.”
The proposal was seconded by Cllr Stephen Price and voted through.
Cllr Roberts added: “Can I apologise to those registered to speak? But unfortunately, because the legal department has received complaints about the way the site visit was conducted, we therefore have no choice but to defer this so that there is another site meeting held.”
Details of which committee members turned up and who didn’t weren’t revealed at the meeting, nor was the cost of conducting a second site visit.
Each site visit would likely incur a cost in terms of officers’ time as well as the expense of councillors’ travel to and from the location.
The plans for the former light industrial building include 10 one-bedroom flats and 10 two-bedroom flats.
The matter will be discussed at the next planning committee meeting.

By Richard Evans – Local Democracy Reporter