Housebuilders who won a battle to put homes on a former school site have had their bid to make Midlothian Council pay their expenses rejected - even though the local authority was ruled to have been "unreasonable".
Lochay Homes took its battle to build 46 bungalows at the site of Wellington School, near the village of Howgate, to Scottish Ministers last December after the council’s planning committee delayed a decision on the proposals.
The plans had sparked a wave of protest from local residents who established the Wellington Action Group to fight it. They warned that the building of the homes on the rural site would create an "isolated commuter desert".
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But despite their claims the plans went against national net zero carbon targets and threatened a peat bog, the Scottish Government Reporter said he could find no reason to refuse planning permission.
Lochay Homes then asked the Reporter to rule the council should pay their expenses as they had acted, they said, unreasonably.
The developers pointed out that they had to wait 21 months for a decision, well past the 17 month maximum delay, and should not have had to bring the appeal.
However the Reporter noted the developers agreed to several extensions of time for a decision over the housing and that after some further delays the council's planning committee had agreed to refuse the application.
And while he accepted the length of the time it took to make a decision was "unreasonably long" he did not believe the appeal could have been avoided.
The council's planning committee had been due to make a decision on the application at a meeting in December last year but an administration error meant papers, which should have been sent out with it, were not circulated.
Councillors decided to delay their decision until a meeting in January by which time the developers had already appealed to Scottish Ministers over a lack of determination.
When the council's planning committee did discuss the application they agreed to recommend it for refusal.
The Reporter said: "It is unfortunate that an internal oversight resulted in all the papers not being properly circulated leading to a decision by the committee to defer the application still further.
"Although the committee was perfectly entitled to reach this decision in the circumstances I consider this to be unreasonable.
"There is nothing to suggest that had a decision been taken at the December meeting the outcome would have been any different.
"In these circumstances, although the council’s behaviour may have been unreasonable, the appeal would still have had to come before the Scottish Ministers.
"I do not consider therefore that the appellant has incurred any unnecessary expense and decline to make an award."
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