A call for councillors to decide whether to grant permission for an on-site home to provide security for a Pembrokeshire fuel distribution business which employs 32 people rather than planning officers has been turned down.
Dan Thomas of KP Thomas & Son, through agent Cynllunio RW Planning Ltd, applied to Pembrokeshire County Council in February to build a home for managing the business and related works at The Fuel Depot, Templeton.
A supporting statement says family-run K P Thomas and Son has operated for 39 years and “grown into a major local employer, currently providing work for 32 staff”.
It says the firm supplies “over 45,000 customers annually and distributes 30 million litres of fuel, 8,000 tonnes of LPG gas and 500 tonnes of coal every year,” and was “formally designated as an essential key service provider during the Covid-19 pandemic”.
Dan Thomas said living at his current address was “not workable due to the urgent and unpredictable nature of our operations”.
He said even living in nearby Templeton could delay emergency call-outs, which often happen in the early hours. The business operates 24/7 across Pembrokeshire and beyond, while his working day can run from 5am to 8pm.
Planning officers have yet to decide the scheme under delegated powers.
At the council’s November planning delegation panel meeting, local member Cllr Elwyn Morse asked councillors to decide the scheme instead.
Officers recommended that members leave the decision to them.
In order for a successful call for a councillor decision to be made, such a call has to meet a range of criteria, and is not based on the planning merits or otherwise of the scheme.
Cllr Morse said in his supporting statement: “The applicant has demonstrated an absolute need to be living on-site in order to properly manage both the daytime working and out-of-hours transport movements safely and effectively.”
He added: “This is an important local business being led by a young person who is working tirelessly to develop the site and with it providing more jobs and economic prosperity in the area.”
An officer’s report said Cllr Morse’s request did not identify which criteria it met and raised no issues “that could be considered as meeting the relevant criteria for referral to planning committee”.
Cllr Morse repeated his request at the meeting, but fellow committee member Cllr Tessa Hodgson urged members to back the officers’ recommendation.
Cllr Hodgson said the committee faced growing scrutiny after a recent call to scrap it was ultimately withdrawn.
She said the committee needed “robust decision-making” and “copper-bottomed” decisions based on referral criteria, not individual schemes’ planning merits.
Members voted four to one, with one abstention, to leave the decision to planning officers.
