An account of the Parish Council meeting on 9 May

A large and perhaps unprecedented gathering of parishioners, numbering at least 60, crowded the Village Hall on Tuesday night to listen to the proceedings of the Parish Council. The item on the agenda that brought the majority of them there was the proposal put forward by Lanpro to build 35 houses on land at the NW corner of Binham Road and North Street. The Vice Chairman of the Parish Council, Mr Patrick Allen, has a pecuniary interest in this proposal. He was present at the meeting.

Instead of recusing himself as the law requires, and instead of leaving the room as the Local Government Association code of conduct recommends, Mr Allen remained seated when this matter came before the Council. He claimed that, since no formal application has been put before the planners at NNDC, he was not required to absent himself from the discussion.

Indeed he took a vocal and defensive part in it. As for the others on the Council, the Chairman expressed half-hearted approval of the proposal, while the others, bar Anne-Marie Coe, expressed no cogent opinion at all. Ms Coe acknowledged the situation and suggested further discussion with parishioners about this matter prior to any future planning application, and her statements are much appreciated.

The audience politely articulated their concerns and their need to be heard by the Parish Council. When asked whether, as representatives of the village, the councillors ought to have a collective view on the issue as it stands, they disagreed, again saying that the proposal is merely that and not yet a formal planning matter.

Mr Allen was met with hoots of derisive laughter when, challenged about the utility of imposing covenants of one sort or another on the developers, he loudly declared, ‘I’m in charge!’

All this contrasted bizarrely with the previous proceedings of the Council, detailing the minutiae of parochial affairs such as cutting back unruly hedges or replacing the defibrillator, or accounting, to the last penny, the parish’s assets, income and expenditures.

By the date of its next meeting a pre-planning application may have been submitted. We shall no doubt all attend that meeting too, in order to ascertain whether our own parish council has managed to form a view about one of the largest single developments ever proposed for Langham.