Thursday 21 June 2018

Stop press - Long Meadow public inquiry

At 4.40pm, Wednesday, Oakmere Homes formally withdrew their Appeal and the Inspector closed the Inquiry.

After only the second day of a seven-day programme, landscape/green gap and drainage/flooding matters had been considered, but highways, heritage, housing supply, 'tidying up' and formal site visit were still to come.  But landscape and flooding were creating so many interdependent issues that Oakmere's QC sought further instructions from his client whom he contacted at a racecourse somewhere and got his decision.

Just before that Long Meadow Lane residents had expressed their feelings about flooding from the site and Clive Walkley had made his statement about being a pedestrian on Oxenholme Lane.  The County Council's man from Carlisle had waited all day for nothing.

But now we don't have to turn out tomorrow at the Shakespeare Centre or back in the Town Hall after that.  Hooray!

We shall see whether Oakmere want to do a lot of extra investigation and design work and relaunch their appeal for a (probably) less financially viable site.

David Peters