Brentwood Council planning officers have been criticised for failing to deliver elected members' wishes to refuse plans for hundreds of homes.

An application for 344 homes on land north of Shenfield was refused in July with 11 members voting for a refusal and two members abstaining.

The final wording of the reasons were to be delegated to officers in consultation with the chair and vice chair.

However a final decision notice has not been issued by officers in quick enough time, leaving applicant Croudace Homes free to appeal the decision on grounds of non-determination.

A Brentwood Council officer had warned councillors before the vote that refusing the planning application to build the homes and partly close a road to motor vehicles could cost the council as much as £500,000 if appealed by the developer.

Planning officer Kathryn Williams said in her warning against refusal that the development was policy compliant and no technical advisors objected to the application.

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The application from Croudace Homes for 344 homes and a new primary school off Chelmsford Road and Alexander Lane sits in the largest parcel of land known as Officer Meadow.

Three other developers – Countryside Properties, Redrow Homes and Stonebond Properties – are all developing different and separate plots in the same area, which will eventually see a total of 825 homes.

The committee had heard concerns about the impact of traffic despite Essex highways officers not objecting to the plans. There were also concerns about the design of some aspects of the development.

Following the vote, officers had engaged with Croudace and had a request from the developer to not issue the decision immediately in order to discuss whether there might be any changes that could be made which would be significant enough to warrant a return to planning.

This was done with the knowledge and consent of the chair and vice chair and took place for a number of weeks after the planning committee meeting.

An email from Emma Goodings, director of place, set out how the council understood in August that the applicant had decided that they were not willing to make any changes and so was looking to appeal the decision.

Officers have also received legal advice over how they might support members of the committee if an appeal was lodged – including whether they should issue the decision notice.

The council has now been formally notified of the appeal on the grounds of non-determination.

The failure to act on members’ wishes has been described as “weird”.

Committee member Keith Barber said: “What I do think is terrible is there was no update to members and there was no update to members of the public.

“If you lived in Shenfield and you have watched the planning meeting and seen it be refused I think all fair-minded people would expect that would be acted on. There is something very weird here when planning officers are doing stuff that is not aligned to the decision making of a committee.

“I am very disappointed not to have been updated by officers on the fact that they didn’t implement the decision of a committee.”

Planning committee chairman Councillor Phil Mynott said: “In terms of the determination notice there were internal processes that needed to be completed in terms of the nature of the reasons that were being given for the refusal. There was a dialogue which went on between the council and Croudace through that process.

“Unfortunately it was the case that Croudace at the end of that process or at the point that had originally been laid out decided that they wanted to make an issue of non-determination.”

Brentwood Council has been asked for comment.