A decision to approve dual Irish and English language street signs at a Portadown housing estate has been deferred after it emerged that an objection had been sent but not received due to a ’typo’ in an email address.
Legal advice had to be taken twice during a meeting of ABC Council’s April planning committee before the matter was put back.
The application for dual language signage referred to Corcrain Gardens and was submitted last May.
A two thirds majority is required to place such applications before council for a decision to be made.
In this case, 16 valid addresses were confirmed, with the threshold rounded up to 11.
In all, 12 agreed with dual language signage and four did not, therefore meeting that threshold.
The committee was, therefore, asked to decide whether or not it would use its “discretionary power to approve the application”.
It never actually got to that stage, however, with confusion arising over correspondence objecting to the application.
DUP Councillor Kyle Moutray had asked head of building control Tom Lavery if anything had been received, as he told the meeting he had been “personally made aware that a written representation has been sent”.
He asked what could be done in this scenario and if Mr Lavery could “double check”.
The head of building control said he had checked and “still hadn’t received any written representation” other than the responses to the survey.
“I’m not aware about anything coming in my direction,” said Mr Lavery.
A short recess for a “wee bit of clarification” was taken after which the official confirmed: “We have checked and there’s nothing in my email or has arrived with myself yet. There’s nothing in the legal services inbox and there’s nothing in democratic services inbox at this moment. So we’re not aware of any objections or written objections.”
Councillor Kyle Moutray said he understood the confusion but added: “What I was told was that it was written representation that was sent in so I don’t know if that adds to the confusion that already exists.
“I’m not sure what the process is for that but that’s what I was told, so I just think in the interest of this committee being prudent, it may be safest to defer this until such a time that we can clarify if written representation has been sent in.”
The suggestion brought an emphatic, “No, I disagree with that”, from Sinn Fein Councillor Paul Duffy.
“We have to go with what’s in front of us. People had ample opportunity to send in their responses, their written responses,” he said, pointing out again that the threshold had been met and “proposing that this council uses discretionary power to accept the recommendation for dual language street signage at Corcrain Gardens, Portadown”.
DUP Councillor Scott Armstrong, however, seconded the proposal to defer.
He said they were not arguing the facts around the threshold having been met, but he felt it “important” to look into the matter.
“There’s been another development that there has been a letter sent in. We don’t know why that hasn’t got to where it needs to get, but I just want to get that double-checked. So that’s why I think a deferral, in this case, will be best practice at this moment in time,” added Councillor Armstrong.
Alliance Councillor, Peter Lavery seconded the proposal to proceed with the application, saying the residents’ views had been received and met the threshold.
“I think any external views on it are sort of irrelevant,” he said. “It is the residents of the street in which the policy has been developed to be consulted.”
Committee moved into confidential business to seek legal advice.
Afterwards, Councillor Scott Armstrong apologised “for the confusion around all this”, stating: “I do have confirmation here that I was CC’d into, that an attempt was made to contact Tom Lavery, (head of building control), but there was a typo in the email address, which obviously is why it hasn’t been received by Tom. So I do have proof here and I’m happy to share it with officers if needs be.”
After a second adjournment to speak to the council’s solicitor, the meeting resumed with SF Councillor Paul Duffy withdrawing his proposal to proceed at this time based “on legal advice”.
Councillor Lavery also withdrew his seconding of the proposal, based on the same advice and evidence of an email typo, but remarking it was “unfortunate it’s happened so late”.
Proposed by Councillor Moutray and seconded by Councillor Armstrong, it was agreed to defer until the next planning meeting.
