Geoffrey Cox Q.C., Conservative PPC for Torridge and West Devon, met Peninsula Power boss Roger Barton last week to go though the company’s planning application recently submitted to Torridge District Council. Afterwards, he attended a meeting of DUST at Winkleigh.
Geoffrey Cox said: “Mr. Barton has taken me through some of the application and he has promised to provide me with a copy. I repeated to him my belief that the SWRDA’s behaviour so far has been atrocious and that the local community is entitled to feel that the whole process to date has been mishandled by local and national government.”
He continued: “Now that the planning application has been submitted, I shall be closely following its progress and speaking to my parliamentary colleagues who might be affected such as Angela Browning MP, our environmental spokesmen, and Peter Ainsworth MP, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Environmental Audit Committee.”
“ I have met many people who have told me that they bought homes near the proposed site in the last few years who did their best to find out what plans existed for the airfield. They are understandably angry that the authorities knew of the plan but no-one appeared to have the responsibility of ensuring that the proposal – at least in general terms – was made public.”
He concluded; “In my view, firm and verifiable guarantees concerning the effect of the plant on the local area must be in place before support for this application could even be seriously considered. I shall be studying the application to see if there is any chance these might exist.”

24th October 2004