In August this year, Martyn Fryer of Saxton was erroneously granted full and unconditional permission to build a two storey house, studio apartment, two-car garage and a separate stable block on 'green field' site at Saxton near Tadcaster. A decision which directly contravenes the council's own Local Plan policies.

In a report that went before Wednesday's committee Claire Richards, the officer responsible for the application said, “Contrary to the recommendation of the officer report planning permission was granted by clerical error. It is expedient to issue a revocation order and permission to do so is requested”.

She continued, “The clerical error arose when a document was selected in the documents list when printing off the notice of decision. This resulted in the word “refused” being replaced with the word “granted” on the decision notice. Therefore although the decision notice that was issued cited the reason for refusal it also stated that permission had been granted. As a result of this error an unconditional planning permission was granted to the applicant.”

Once made aware of the blunder, the council approached Mr. Fryer to ask whether he would consent to the permission being revoked. Perhaps unsurprisingly however, he did not.

The report also warned councillors that the already cash-strapped Council may be required to compensate the applicant for the error.

“If a Revocation Order is served by the Local Planning Authority, compensation is payable by that Local Planning Authority... This could include compensation paid in respect of depreciation of land value [resulting from the revocation]”.