Telephone.. 01834 844957
Mobile...... 07787 560129
email ann@flemishheights.com

“Flemish Heights”
Penally, Tenby
Pembrokeshire
SA70 7PZ

5th March 2007

The Chief Executive,
Pembrokeshire County Council,
County Hall,
Haverfordwest.
SA61 1TP

Application 05/1254/PA: Arqiva Transmitting Station, The Ridgeway, Penally.

Dear Mr Parry-Jones,

We have received an email from Mr Peter Jordan, explaining two options to progress our formal complaints. These options were put to the Members of Penally Community Council on 1st March during our monthly meeting.

We are aware of two complaints to The Public Services Ombudsman regarding points we have raised and are also aware that this option is not open to a Community Council.

We therefore have been given no choice but to progress to Stage Three of Pembrokeshire County Council’s Formal Complaints Procedure. It is relevant to state that Stage Three was what was requested in our letter dated 8^th November 2006 after advice given to us that Stages One and Two would have had meant employees investigating their most senior officer! However we now feel that as aspects of our formal complaints deal with a Director of Pembrokeshire County Council that it remains inappropriate to ask an officer, even at the same level to investigate another .

Penally Community Council have accordingly and unanimously decided to ask that our complaints be progressed to Stage 3 of Pembrokeshire County Council’s Complaints Procedure and to further ask that an authorised person, experienced in dealing with such matters and independent of Pembrokeshire County Council, be brought in to investigate the matters raised.

Our formal complaints include all that has been written within our letters (and attachments to said letters) dated 8^th October 2006, 8^th 22^nd and 23^rd November 2006, 1^st and 4^th December 2006, 13^th February 2007 (mistakenly dated 2006 ), and also the further information and questions contained within this letter. We also wish you to include as reference material, our letters to The Planning Inspector dated 22^nd and 27^th February 2007.

We now submit some more relevant information and documentation including new evidence presented and accepted at The Local Public Inquiry and some serious questions raised by the content of said documents. There is also further reference to complaints and questions raised in our previous correspondence.

A. Penally Community Council received very important information from Dyfed Powys Police (under the Freedom of Information Act) which was sent to The Planning Inspectorate on 23^rd February 2007 and copied by email to you, other senior figures within Pembrokeshire County Council including the Planning Department and to the county’s barrister Miss Douglas on the same day. This information was added to, and further clarified by, our letter dated 27^th February 2007 (Appendix One) and presented to Miss Douglas before the Local Public Inquiry resumed on 28^th February 2007. The Inspector allowed this evidence to be admitted and it was subjected to cross-examination by the appellant’s barrister for approximately two hours. We were somewhat surprised that Miss Douglas did not seek any clarification of this new evidence and made no attempt to cross-examine either Mrs Dassen or the appellant’s expert witness who was allowed to respond to our new evidence. Especially in light of Point 14 in Miss Douglas’ closing submission to the Inquiry, I quote " In the absence of a technically viable alternative being presented to them, they concluded that the harm to amenity, arising from perceived risk, at this highly sensitive site was insufficient to constitute" exceptional circumstances".

We feel during this time that enough new evidence had been submitted and discussed regarding :-

1. Proof that both Dyfed-Powys Police and the National Park Authority did not support the Appeal site as claimed in Arqiva’s written and verbal presentation.
2. Proof that an alternative site, Public Services Reservoir, Narberth Road, New Hedges, tested and approved by PITO (Police Information Technology Organisation) as being "a very close second" in terms of coverage in January 2005, with a mast height of a mere 10m, had not been presented to Pembrokeshire County Council LPA until after this second application was the subject of the Appeal. This was despite Mrs Taylor writing to them in August 2005 asking for Arqiva/Airwave to provide a suitable alternative site (not mast share )(Appendix Two) .Mrs Taylor confirmed to Cllr Cavill on Friday 23^rd February 2007, at County Hall, that she had not been presented with this site as an alternative at any time from the beginning of discussions on Tetra in this area in April 2005 until this second application became the subject of the current Appeal in August 2006. The written evidence produced by Arqiva (November/December 2006) for this appeal, eventually included PSR Narberth Road as an alternative but stated that it was not viable because it needed a mast height of in excess of 42m!!! AN INCREASE OF 32M (nearly 100ft) on a mast height accepted by government agency PITO over 2 years ago!
3. This also raises serious questions about mast height predictions of 30m plus at Cornish Down Farm, New Hedges in very close proximity to The Public Services Reservoir and 15m higher above sea level! Added to this are further comments within the police information provided where Supt Evans (Dyfed-Powys Police identified lead on Airwave since 2002) is querying why this site has not been pursued further .
4. Proof that the three official parties involved Airwave, PITO and Dyfed Powys Police had signed a "contractual coverage agreement" in January 2005 confirming that the Police already had (and still have) the necessary coverage in this area of Pembrokeshire through existing masts except for a very small area known as the Tenby Enumeration Area (area enclosed in red on coloured maps within Appx 4 letter 23/1/07.) This crucial information had not been presented in documentation to the LPA, nor was it presented to the Inspector during the Inquiry. Along with misleading printed comments on alternative sites presented by the Appellant, whilst analysing maps on day 2 of the Inquiry, this resulted in lengthy, unnecessary discussion of coverage in outlying areas and wrongful direction and therefore additional and unnecessary costs.

There is no doubt from the documents obtained from the police, that the Appellant withheld important information during the application and process and in doing so seriously misled the LPA, Pembrokeshire County Council, Cllr Mrs Cavill, Penally Community Council and The Harriet Davis Trust. We submit, as further proof, a copy of a combined letter from Nick Ainger MP and Christine Gwyther AM admitted by the inspector at the start of the final day of The Local Public Inquiry (Appendix Three) Although this information became known at a very late stage, we fail to understand why either someone in Pembrokeshire County Council or indeed their learned barrister, Miss Douglas (who must be used to late submissions and important points being conceded on the final day of an Inquiry), still did not feel it appropriate to claim for the County’s expenses because of the "unreasonable behaviour" of the appellant?

We now refer to Mr Jordan’s official response dated 10.01.2007 to our Stage 2 Complaints and make the following further observations :-

2. Mr Jordan’s letter P3 Heading Paragraph 4. 

We have indeed,as the complainants, referred to learned comments by Planning Inspector’s in Appeal Decisions in this area.

The one part of Point/ Paragraph 4 which Mr Jordan’s letter has attempted to address is:-

May we submit a letter sent by the same Planning Officer, to the appellant in August 2005 regarding the first identical application (Appendix Two for this letter ..and also highlighted in paragraph A point 2 above ..also used as Appx 5 in our letter to The Planning Inspector dated 22.02.07),where she clearly states :-

C. In defence of a claim for an award of costs by the appellant, Miss Douglas quite rightly submitted a document entitled "Costs LPA" to the Inspector. Evidence within this new document has clear relevance to point 6 of our formal complaint letter dated 8th November 2006. May we remind you of "point 6" which clearly states:-

6. Verbal presentation at this meeting by the Director of Development, which included a suggestion that "should the Planning Committee vote that they would have approved this application, this would allow the applicants a chance to submit a second application!" May we remind him that this site, in the last 18 months, has already been the subject of two identical applications and a withdrawn Appeal and is currently the subject of a LIVE APPEAL. His written proposal for this Agenda item includes on page 8, "This would offer the applicants an opportunity to make a new application which could then be determined under delegated power .." We conclude that the Director of Development is effectively inviting the applicant to submit a THIRD identical application, which sits ill against the history of valid planning objections and could be constituted as an abuse of procedure.

Pembrokeshire County Council’s written response to this in Mr Jordan’s letter (10.01.07) states:-

May we now refer you to Miss Douglas’ presented Costs LPA document (relevant pages appended Appendix Four). (We have highlighted the relevant comments in red ).

2/10/06 Inspectorate inform LPA that Harriet Davis Trust has been accorded Rule 6 status.

10/10/06 Committee consider appeal in light of refusal of alternative and determine that on balance
the application should have been approved.

In respect to conduct of the appeal: it appears from the history that within 8 weeks of the Appeal being lodged the LPA had determined that they would have approved the application and the Appellant was in a
position to make a further application and to have it determined before this inquiry could be heard. Had he done so this inquiry would have been avoided and costs to all parties, arising from the abandonment of the appeal, would have been minimal.

Page 7 Point 18:-

Further, the LPA had by the day after Committee invited a fresh application: the Appellant chose to continue with the appeal. Had he submitted that application and continued with the appeal he could have
had a permission in his hand before the inquiry and the bulk of his expenses could have been avoided. If you are minded to make an award the LPA submit that it should not reflect any sum incurred after the
11/10/2006.

Page 9 Points 20, 21 and 22:-

20. The LPA say that from the 10 October meeting forward the Appellant has known the LPA position:it was not contesting the Appeal but would have granted permission had the matter been before them.

21. Such evidence as the Appellant has had to prepare for this appeal does not flow from the LPA's position (which was made clear again and again) but from his need to deal with the Rule 6 parties case: again that could have been avoided had a fresh application been submitted.

22. Was there any doubt, which the LPA do not accept, after 10/10/06 about the LPA's position it was made completely clear in the letter of 6/12/06 and the suggested Statement of Common Ground.

Using the new information submitted by Pembrokeshire County Council’s barrister we ask?

In Point 9 it states that The Harriet Davis Trust charity for severely disabled children had already been awarded Rule 6 status .The charity had under "charity law" had a duty to call an extraordinary meeting of Trustees, from all over the Country, to gain approval for such action and approve using their own limited funds, and we would therefore suggest they had decided it was a well-reasoned and necessary course of action for The Harriet Davis Trust. Point 9 clearly states above that Pembrokeshire County Council were aware that the charity had been accepted by The Planning Inspectorate under Rule 6 status on 2/10/06.

It is clear from Point 15 above that Pembrokeshire County Council were fully aware that a quick approval of a third application would result in the Inquiry being cancelled "Had he done so this inquiry would have been avoided and costs to all parties, arising from the abandonment of the appeal, would have been minimal".

We look forward to your earliest response, with full details of who you have asked to investigate our formal complaints. To save time could you please direct your response or questions to the address or email address above. An official emailed response would be acceptable in order to avoid delay. Should you require any further copies of letters or documentation we have presented, please do not hesitate to ask. Our clerk does not have a computer.

Yours sincerely,

D.V.Thomas (Chairman) Ann Dassen (Councillor)

For and on behalf of

Penally Community Council

cc.Mr Phil Bevan, Head of Policy and Corporate Planning,

Corporate Improvement Manager,

Chief Legal Officer,

Chairman Pembrokeshire County Council,

Mr David Lawrence ( Head of Planning),

Mr Roger Barrett-Evans (Director of Development),

Mrs Lynda Taylor (Principal Development Officer),

Cllr. David Simpson (Disability Equality Champion),

Mr Alan Hunt, Access Officer,

Cllr. Carol Cavill,

Nick Ainger MP,

Christine Gwyther AM