The recent storm has highlighted the continued irresponsibility of South Hams District Council in granting planning consent to sites at risk of flooding by the sea.

A few years ago, unknown to residents, SHDC sneaked into the Shoreline Management Plan a designation of No Further Action for Hallsands.

Ever since, it has been the policy of both SHDC and the county council to respond to pleas for repairs to our storm-damaged road or maintenance of our flood defences with crocodile tears and expressions of deep regret that their hands are tied by this designation.

It appears, however, that news of this policy has not reached the SHDC planners for they have continued to grant consent to sites that with damaged and unrepaired sea defences are obviously at risk of being overwhelmed in storms – obvious, that is, to anyone who has observed the winter sea for more than five minutes.

The latest casualty of this irresponsibility is a site within yards of Hallsands beach on which work began a few weeks ago. It is now a wreck having been inundated by the waves.

This is only the most recent of the planners’ follies: there are seven homes at the other end of the beach for which planning consent was granted over the last 10 or so years that cannot now be accessed via the public highway.

A reasonable person would presume that in granting planning consent SHDC and the county council, which has an input to planning decisions, have struck a bargain with the applicant: never mind what local people say, what do they know? We say your site is safe from the sea for a 100 years.

Go ahead, build and in exchange for the additional council tax your new house will generate for us, we’ll maintain your road access, empty your bins and ensure that you are defended from the winter storms. Trust us. We wouldn’t let you build somewhere that wasn’t safe, would we? That would be irresponsible to the point of negligence.

But sadly a reasonable person would be wrong. Except for the bit about charging council tax.

Once upon a time council building inspectors had no liability towards householders, that is to say they could approve foundations laid on quicksand and still not carry the can when the house fell down.

Then in 1972 the courts decided that a householder whose council-approved foundations were slipping was entitled to compensation and all that changed.

The law doesn’t yet provide householders with similar protection concerning planning consent, but sooner or later someone will sue for being misled as to the long-term viability of a site. Of course, when this happens it won’t be the councillors or the planners who foot the legal bill, it will be us, the poor bloody council tax payers.

This nonsense has to stop.

David Marcer

North Hallsands