End of painful saga for British Ironwork Centre

The British Ironwork Centre on the outskirts of Oswestry has been granted retrospective planning consent for work carried out at the site without permission.

Shropshire Council’s north planning committee approved the work at its meeting on Tuesday, and a final hurdle – in the shape of a prospective call-in by the government planning department – has now been cleared.

A member of the public had asked for the secretary of state for housing, communities and local government to ensure the application was considered by a planning inspector, if Shropshire Councillors approved the proposal.

But, after Tuesday’s meeting the member of the public who had made the request, withdrew the call.

It means that the centre faces no further threat over the work which had taken place at the site.

It comes after the man behind the British Ironwork Centre, Clive Knowles, had told the committee the he would have done things differently if he had the chance.

He said: “I don’t think any of us could have imagined the time required to reach this point, but we are both relieved and grateful.

“I fully accept and take responsibility.

“If I had to do things again, we would have done things very differently.”

The government has confirmed it would not be calling the application in.

In a statement issued on behalf of the secretary of state, John Blakeway, planning casework officer at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, said: “Your request is considered withdrawn and accordingly the secretary of state has no further interest in this case.”

The member of the public who had put in the request said they had withdrawn it after being satisfied at the committee’s decision.

Reassured

They said: “Having attended the planning meeting when the application was considered by the north planning committee, and through speaking at length with the applicant afterwards, I feel that the committee came to the right decision in resolving to grant retrospective planning permission.

“I was reassured by certain members declaring an interest and leaving the room, and by all the remaining members raising concerns regarding the highway issue, as well as the manner in which the applicant had gone about developing his scheme.

“After listening to the committee discussion, I feel that any harm caused by the application is outweighed by the positive benefits, and this was the unanimous decision of the committee.

“I also recognise that few applications are called in each year, and that it might take a few weeks to come to a decision to not call the application in, so in light of the above, I think it would be unfair of me to allow the indecision over issuing the planning consent to continue and cause further distress and uncertainty to the applicant.”

Council planners had recommended granting retrospective planning permission for the tourist attraction. Scores of people packed the north planning meeting to hear the application for an extension and alterations to existing lawful buildings to include improvements to an existing access and change of use of land to formalise the sculpture park on part of the site.

Safety concerns about the entrance to the site from the A5 had led to talks with Highways England which had resulted in conditions imposed on the permission that included the construction of a middle lane for safe right turning into the site.