A planning decision made after an hour-long debate at Sefton Council last week has turned out to be invalid thanks to a paperwork error.
Several councillors expressed frustration during a planning meeting last Wednesday (April 14) where they were left with little option but to accept a significantly reduced contribution towards affordable housing from the developers behind a new care home on the site of the former Mayflower Industrial Estate in Formby.
The developers had claimed the project, which is nearly complete, would not be financially viable if they were forced to include the 10 affordable homes that had originally been promised and instead offered £266,000 towards affordable housing elsewhere in Sefton.
But confusion over who the developers actually are means that last week’s decision is no longer valid and the proposal has to be consulted on and debated again at a later date.
The application to reduce the development’s contribution towards affordable housing was made in the name of Ascot Property Group, the company that had originally secured planning permission for the site in 2017.
However, it has since emerged that Ascot sold its interest in the site that same year to a different company, Mayflower Manor Ltd, and had no further involvement with the development.
Despite this, the architects responsible for the scheme - KDP - somehow managed to list Ascot and its owner Terry Riley as the applicants when filing this latest application with Sefton Council.
KDP’s error only came to light when Ascot’s team read the ECHO’s coverage of the meeting and pointed out that they had nothing to do with the application.
The application will now have to be discussed by the planning committee again after next month’s local elections, although this is unlikely to change the result.
Cllr Bob McCann, who opposed the application last week, said: “I can imagine that when this goes before planning again it will just be waved through unless there’s a massive change in the planning committee.
“I think they will just say we had listened to this in April and we’ve just had to sort out the paperwork. I can’t see it being a big discussion again.”
KDP was approached for comment for this story but did not reply prior to publication.
