YESTERDAY I was robbed of two hours of my life — yes I do mean robbed as it was my misfortune to attend a meeting of North Cornwall District Council's Planning Comm­it­­tee.

I appreciate that the planning committees are always going to upset someone as they are often caught between two opposing camps but I did attend the meeting hoping to play some small part in the democratic process.

There is a public gallery and a public address system so I presumed members of the public were welcome. Not a bit of it — the councillors chat among themselves not making use of the PA system and pushing scrappy bits of plans into an inadequate projector. No members of the public are allowed to speak despite the fact that decisions may completely alter their lives and councillors could barely be bothered to raise their heads from papers in front of them when proposals were being discussed, arms shooting up on automatic pilot when a vote was called for. How many councillors could today tell me half of the applications they voted on in any detail?

Our local councillor, Tony Edwards, has been very supportive, as has our parish council, advising us as to letters of objection etc, but all to no avail — there was some two dozen letters of objection, none in support and I did expect that those people who had taken the time to write would at least have had their letters read by the planning committee.

If they did read all the letters then let me apologise but there was no indication yesterday that anything but the summary compiled by the planning officer had been studied. Most of the committee sat in silence as if this matter were nothing to do with them and any objections were dismissed out of hand.

Although which application is not really relevant as I watched other suggestions for modifications to plans being dismissed in a similar manner, I should mention that the application which brought me to the planning committee included payments to offset the fact that this proposed development was not affordable housing. May I applaud the young councillor (whose name I didn't hear but who was closer to the public gallery so could be heard by us) who attempted to raise the affordable housing issue but was shot down in flames by other members of the committee with "North Cornwall District Council has no provision for insisting that developers identify sites in the local area where these monies can be spent."

It was even laughingly suggested that the parish hall needed some work and perhaps the monies could be spent there. The developer is paying £240,000 to the council so he can build four more holiday homes in an area of outstanding natural beauty, which already has many, many houses that are empty for most of the year.

We would actually like neighbours but this development is obviously more holiday homes as they have no gardens and look like beach huts. I doubt very much if the members of the committee could even identify the location let alone the two houses already given planning permission which were briefly visited by their owners over the Christmas period.

Local residents were shocked at the amount of money being turned over to the council to facilitate this development and look upon this as legalised bribery. How much more money is paid for such developments and where has the money been spent? How many applications involving payments are actually turned down?

Finally, whilst I didn't expect a decision in our favour I did expect that the matter would be dealt with sympathetically and that for perfectly logical reasons the council would find in favour of the developer. I'm sure there are planning specifications that the developer has diligently studied to fulfil all the necessary rules but if this was the case someone should have explained or at least discussed them.

Properties already built by the same developer have been found by building control to have exceeded the heights proposed on the plans but no action has been taken, but although this was pointed out in several objection letters the committee didn't even see fit to recommend regular visits from building control to make sure this does not occur again. The whole matter took less than two minutes for a decision that will affect my community forever.

So yesterday I wasted two hours of my life driving to a meeting that was little more than a rubber stamping operation. Shame on you, all you councillors who just showed up and made little or no contribution to any discussions. Shame on you for having lost touch with the people you represent. Perhaps you should all step aside for those who are passionate about Cornwall for, if you ever were, you didn't give that impression yesterday!

Widemouth Bay.