I WAS a member of the main planning committee of Malvern Hills District Council that was reconvened last Thursday after tragedy at the previous meeting.

The meeting started with members of the public and other interested councillors sharing their views on the planning application at Eastwood Road in the significant gap.

It was a delight, if somewhat rare, to see the chief executive in the audience and no doubt he was impressed by the speeches. The quality of the speeches was excellent and clearly a lot of research, thought and practice had gone into them

The meeting than moved onto the debate by committee members themselves.

The discussion was in the long-standing tradition of Malvern Hills District Council planning, and an outsider would have been hard-pressed to put political party labels on members as a result of the debate.

In my view a welcome change reverting back to established practice on planning being non-party political

Unfortunately, the chief executive was unable to hear this as he left earlier – perhaps a sign of what happens when CEOs are shared, or maybe he simply had another commitment that evening

The original decision of southern area planning not to grant planning permission was upheld, as no doubt reported elsewhere in the paper.

Cllr Paul Tuthill

Link ward

Malvern Hills District Council