HOUSING Minister Michael Gove made a concession this week to Tory MPs to make house building targets non-binding ‘if they can show that hitting the targets would significantly change the character of an area’.

This is exactly the argument Abbotskerswell Parish Council, the Wolborough Residents Association, NSN and the six thousand objectors had been putting forward against NA3 articulately since 2012.

The environmental crime of NA3, building 1200 houses on rolling fields of Wolborough adjacent to a SSSI, the European protected South Hams SAC and a blue flag nature reserve will go down in local history as one of the worst decisions of a generation.

The saga, which is still likely to have many twists and turns, will be the defining legacy of Teignbridge District Council. The Lib Dems got elected suggesting they would do ‘everything within the law’ to stop NA3.

They did the opposite. They oversaw a very dubious planning meeting that granted planning permission. After serious concerns were raised, the Planning Advisory Service were called in to investigate but somehow failed to look into five of the very serious concerns raised by South Devon Alliance Cllrs.

The Lib Dems thanked the PAS ‘for all their hard work’ and then threw all the guns in the river by scrapping the Wolborough DPD Masterplan.

A document that might have put in place some overarching environmental protections required. When asked at Full Council last week why they had done this, Cllr Gary Taylor resorted to quoting Tory MP Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State who eventually passed planning permission on NA3. Jenrick took so much care in his consideration of the decision he called Teignbridge Tonbridge.

In his eyes, places to build houses so let’s not worry about detail. Once again demonstrating that the Lib Dems are a cigarette paper width away from the Tories on housing policy. To carry on their pattern of ‘non engagement’ TDC now seem to be getting round public consultation on environmental matters with the actual residents by setting up a ‘citizens assembly’ without any fanfare or engagement with real stakeholders.

The sad fact is that the arguments against NA3 have this week been, albeit belatedly, accepted by the Housing Minister. It is a travesty for the district that the previous Tory Council and the current Lib Dems have been lapdogs to national developer led housing policy, failing to put forward any strong opposition that would have put the hugely controversial NA3 in a very different position after this week’s government U turn.