Please go to the Waverley Web if you can work out whodunnit – answers on a postcard.
Here’s the Press Release from Waverley Towers.
Referenda on the Elstead & Weyburn and the Cranleigh Neighbourhood Plans back on track.
Today, the Honourable Mrs Justice Lang DBE ordered that the referenda on the Elstead & Weyburn Neighbourhood Plan and the Cranleigh Neighbourhood Plan proceed.
The two referenda were originally due to take place on 29 February 2024, but due to errors identified in the published plans, the intervention of the High Court was required.
The errors related to housing sites in the Elstead and Weyburn plans and parts of the settlement boundaries shown on maps included within both plans. Legal advice obtained by the council at the time indicated that the errors presented a risk of legal challenges if the two referenda proceeded and those plans were subsequently adopted.
Mrs Justice Lang made an initial order in February, preventing the council from proceeding with the referendum process. Following a short hearing in the High Court today, She ordered the council to take prompt steps to restart the process.
The Order also stated that ‘the Counting Officer was in no way at fault and had at all times duly and properly performed his functions under the 2012 Neighbourhood Plan regulations in relation to the two referenda that were due to be carried out on 29 February 2024’.
Waverley Borough Council’s Strategic Director for Place, Dawn Hudd, said,
“We know that the delay has been disappointing for everyone who has worked hard to prepare these Neighbourhood Plans. However, the plans that residents vote on must reflect the recommendations of the independent examiner. The plans will now be corrected so that a new date for the referendums can be set as soon as possible.”
Here’s the full High Court judgement
AC-2024-LON-000538 R(Waverley BC) v Waverley BC Counting Officer and Ors.
In a nutshell: Did two parish councils make the same mistake?
On 30 January 2024 in respect of the Elstead and Weyburn Neighbourhood Plan, and on 5 February 2024 in respect of the Cranleigh Neighbourhood Plan, the Claimant discovered that it had supplied the Proper Officer with incorrect versions of the Interested Parties’ neighbourhood plans, namely the Elstead and Weyburn Neighbourhood Plan’s, Key Diagram did not accord with the version approved by the examiner, by including erroneous changes to site allocations and the settlement boundary. Regarding the Cranleigh Neighbourhood Plan, the Local Green Spaces map did not accord with the version approved by the examiner and included an erroneous settlement boundary. As a result of the above, the Proper Officer, through no fault of his own, had published incorrect versions of the neighbourhood plans for the electorate to vote upon.
I was just rather surprised that everybody had to go off to Court to sort this out.
Did it really need a Court Order to halt a referendum when there has been an administrative error and substitute plans but presumably some barrister or other said it did …
Exactly what the Waverley Web wondered. Talk about making a drama out of nothing!
The High Court advised
“(a) as regards the Elstead and Weyburn Neighbourhood Plan, the Key Diagram did not accord with the version approved by the examiner, by including erroneous changes to site allocations and the settlement boundary; and
(b) as regards the Cranleigh Neighbourhood Plan, the Local Green Spaces map did not accord with the version approved by the examiner and included an erroneous settlement boundary.”
So why didn’t Waverley BC’s document control system not pick up this error and avoid council taxpayers this unnecessary cost and delay? It is patently obvious that the documents should be those approved by the examiner. It is difficult to understand why no one was responsible, perhaps Waverley BC doesn’t have a document control system?