Useless Town Council Planning Committee being useless again

I would have thought that with the change in political control the Town Council Planning Committee would make itself useful. But useless continues to be the theme. In the refusal over the Cinema Planning application this useless committee has done it again.

The reasons put forward for recommending refusal of the cinema were:

• Emergency vehicle access in and out of the development from Huntingdon Street
• The extra volume of traffic passing through an already congested town centre
• Smells generated by the proposed four restaurants
• Failure by Turnstone Estates to provide a 3D model of the leisure complex

I'll take each "reason" for objection in turn.

Emergency vehicle access. There is no evidence to back up this objection. If the Emergency services have an issue with this they can always object. But they won't. So this is a useless objection.

Extra volume of traffic. Where is the evidence for this? The developer and Councils have done traffic surveys. So where is the evidence that this will cause traffic congestion. Unless the Town Council is willing to back up this objection with its own traffic data this is a useless objection.

Smell generated from restaurants. This could be a planning objection. Again needs to be evidenced. This will lead to a condition on any eventual planning permission. In itself it is not a reason for refusal.

Failure of Turnstone Estates to provide a 3D model. Not a valid planning objection.

Once again the Town Council Planning Committee rises to the challenge and is utterly useless. A good pantomime.

In voting to recommend refusal the Planning Committee is playing a part in a pantomime. The Town Council is leasing much of Shady walk Open Space to Turnstone Estates and the plans were fully known then. So why weren't these objections raised before the lease was agreed?

Most of the land is owned by HDC. Cllr Farrer is a District Councillor. Why haven't these objections been brought to District Council as the land owner. As the land owner HDC has control on what the land is used for than any committee or panel.

This is the Town Council having two policies. One is for the cinema project. The other is against.

The residents may think they have won a victory. But they haven't. These useless objections will be simply ignored by the District Council. Another pantomime for St Neots.

Why not get rid of this useless Planning Committee? The vast majority of the country gets on without one so why do we have this useless committee. Save money and save council tax by ridding St Neots Town Council of this useless committee which serves no real purpose.