Walsall Council’s planning committee has approved plans to build two five-bedroom houses off Barr Lakes Lane in Walsall.
The decision followed a warning from the council’s principal solicitor, Alison Sargent, that approving the green belt plans would put the authority in a ‘vulnerable position’.
But words of warning had little effect as members were undeterred in getting the application over the line.
Half of the statutory consultees had provided objections, including conservation, ecology, highways, planning policy, and trees.
Objections were also received by 25 neighbours and interested parties. Walsall Council’s planning officers had recommended that the application be refused.
It was brought before the planning committee after Councillor Saiqa Nasreen, ward member for Bentley and Darlaston North, disagreed with the officers recommendation.
Officers said the applicant, Shahzad Akram, had been given ‘sufficient’ opportunity to address the reasons for refusal.
They included inappropriate development in the green belt, harm to the open countryside character, insufficient information in terms of heritage, highways and road safety, impacts to ecology, loss of a protected oak tree and an incorrect ownership certificate.
At the meeting on June 19, Mr Akram offered to adhere to several conditions, including carrying out improvements to Barr Lakes Lane to install passing places, bringing the level of the land up to be in line with the highway to improve visibility, moving the access road in order to save the protected oak tree, and making changes to a hedge.
Councillor Aftab Nawaz, leader of the Independent group, moved that the plans be approved with those conditions.
But Ms Sargent warned that doing so would put the council in a difficult position.
She reminded members that there are no details in the application for the land differences, so no information about the engineering work which would need to take place to level the site with the highway.
She said members could not approve plans for an alternative access route to save the tree, they can only vote on the plans which have been put forward by the applicant.
Ms Sargent added that any changes to the hedgerow would not be allowed because it is protected under the conservation area, and no ecology reports have been carried out as part of this application, including no bat or bird assessments.
She said: “There are a number of difficulties there which is why we’ve got so many statutory consultee objections. I am concerned that if members did decide to grant it then you would have great difficulty overcoming those reasons and I think the council would be left in a very vulnerable position.”
Both Councillor Mike Bird, leader of the council and chairman of the planning committee, and Councillor Aftab Nawaz, said they thought the issues were ‘not insurmountable’.
Councillor Lucie Nahal said the committee had in the past deterred other applications with less issues than at Barr Lakes Lane, and suggested that this one was deterred.
But Councillor Bird said he was not prepared to deter the application and moved that it was approved, to which members voted in favour of.