Watchdog slams council planners
A Plymouth man fed up with dust and noise from lorries going to a golf course development has won his fight against the city council.
Planning permission for the development near Plymbridge Road was given in 2004.
But John White, 60, said residents were not told that 66,000 lorries, sometimes more than 120 a day, would be needed.
A local government ombudsman found that council officers had not informed councillors of this. He ruled there was "maladministration causing injustice".
Mr White, whose house in Ashcombe Close overlooks the site, started compiling a 250-page dossier after lorries started moving onto the site in the summer of 2004.
He said if councillors had been told, the lorries could have been directed away from houses.
Mr White, said: "The dust was so bad I could not open my windows.
"There were convoys of heavy traffic every day.
"I don't have a problem with the golf courses, it's the city council that should have told councillors."
He said that his complaints had been rejected so he was forced to go to the ombudsman.
The ombudsman recommended that the council pay Mr White £1,000 for "outrage, uncertainty and his time and trouble in pursuing the complaint".
The council is not obliged to pay him the money, but it must consider the report and tell the ombudsman what action it will take.
A council spokesman said: "We have three months to consider our response to the findings of the ombudsman's report."
Source: The BBC (08/12/2006)
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