A SWANSEA Marina flats saga has taken a new twist, with the spurned developer dropping a multi-million project in nearby SA1 in retaliation.
Simon Jehu, the managing director of Jehu Group Ltd, wrote to Swansea Council's planning department for answers after councillors deferred a decision on the 2012 application for 50 flats at a former boatyard on Trawler Road.
But this strongly-worded letter, seen by the Post, pre-dated a subsequent planning meeting in which elected members rejected the scheme outright — against an officer recommendation.
In the letter dated June 12, Mr Jehu said the situation had become "more than farcical".
He said: "We had three highly experienced planning consultants at the (May) committee meeting and each of them was perplexed by the events that took place."
The decision was deferred at the May meeting because councillors wanted to find out more information about consequences and costs if future residents of the flats complained about the noise from the adjacent boatyard, resulting in its closure.
Mr Jehu claimed in his letter that nobody from the planning department had given any clear reasons for the deferral — and then dropped a bombshell.
"We feel misled by the City and County of Swansea, yet having spent so much so far, we cannot walk away," he said.
"However, we are able to reassess our future investment in Swansea on other schemes and as a direct result of our experience on this project, we will inform the Welsh Government that we shall withdraw immediately from the £10 million mixed use development at SA1 which will deprive the city of 285 jobs. This will free up resources to focus on getting the Trawler Road scheme delivered." Mr Jehu confirmed that this withdrawal from the consented 90-bed care facility project, with restaurants and shops below, had been set in motion.
The letter also outlined a brief history of the Trawler Road application, which was initially submitted to the council by Waterstone Estates — part of the Jehu Group — in August 2012.
Mr Jehu said in February this year that the company was advised at a site meeting that its chances of winning a planning appeal, should the flats scheme be refused, would be "overwhelmingly strong".
Discussions thereafter, he said, focused on objections to the proposal by the authority's own environmental health department.
Mr Jehu said his company obtained details via the Freedom of Information Act which suggested that the environmental health department's opposition on boatyard noise complaint grounds were based on inaccurate information. His agent raised this at the June 24 planning committee meeting in which the scheme was thrown out.
Mr Jehu said his company also carried out a further acoustic report to address concerns, and kept offering to provide more information if required.
Mr Jehu said: "On May 27 the application went before the committee and was deferred for reasons unknown."
He warned in the letter: "If it is the hope that we will simply be ground down and retreat, I assure you that this will not happen.
"The situation is beyond farcical and reflects incredibly poorly on the city of Swansea."
He said his company had spent more than £200,000 on the application process, and claimed that the Trawler Road project had originally been introduced by the council as a development opportunity.
Planning committees in Swansea comprise councillors who run the rule over applications. They decide to approve or reject a recommendation by officers.
Applicants can appeal the decision, and can successfully claim costs if the grounds for the councillors' decision are deemed unreasonable by a Government-appointed inspector.
Scheme 'is a nonsense'SWANSEA Council says officers have invited developer Simon Jehu to meet them to discuss his concerns.
Mr Jehu has told this paper that he planned to appeal the decision to reject the Trawler Road flats scheme, which was made by councillors on June 24.
At the planning meeting in question, council leader David Phillips branded the scheme "frankly a nonsense".
He said he had not been convinced by the developer's planning agent Simon Williams, who said future residents would only have to close their windows for a short period of time, or not at all, due to the noise of the nearby boatyard hoist. The site is also adjacent to Swansea Fish's base.
Mr Williams said the flats and retail unit scheme would create 135 construction jobs, generate "significant capital receipts" for the council, and that there had only been 13 complaints about boatyard noise in the last 74 months.
Mr Philips said he could not imagine estate agents pointing out to a potential resident that they may have to shut their windows.
"This development is frankly a nonsense," he said. "I could not actually believe we were recommending approval (in the report) with so many difficulties."
Property![Developer furious after Marina flat plans are rejected]( "Developer furious after Marina flat plans are rejected")
