Earlier this year, concerns were raised about how West Devon Borough Council had dealt with a planning application from Linden Homes for 250 properties and two hectares of business land at Plymouth Road.
The application was agreed via the delegated authority of a few officers with the powers to make decisions, although it was felt by people opposing the plan that the Linden Homes scheme should have gone before a full planning committee and then council.
As a result of these concerns, the council decided to look at the detail of the decision-making process and appointed a senior legal officer to carry out a review of the council’s handling of the application.
The application was for outline planning permission to develop the land at Plymouth Road Tavistock, a site that had been identified in the Local Plan as being suitable for development.
The report is still being finalised, but an initial briefing about of the emerging conclusions has now been given to relevant councillors.
The council has said it recognises that there is a legitimate public interest in how the application was dealt with and will be bringing the final report of the review to the West Devon Borough Council’s Development Management and Licensing Committee.
That was supposed to be on September 1, but that deadline has now passed.
Cllr Jory said, however, that a firm date for releasing the results of the investigation had not yet been fixed.
He said: ‘I don’t want to put a date yet on when it will be released, but it will be fairly soon.
‘It’s very close to the final write up.
‘We do feel that there is a lot we can learn from what has happened and what we are trying to do is as thorough job as possible.
‘There has been a very thorough and useful investigation and there has been a great deal of input from a number of people.’
The report, when it is finally finished will be available to the public when the meeting’s agenda is published.