Cllr Rob James, Opposition Leader stated “We are staggered that Plaid Cymru and Independent Councillors have refused to accept the Audit Wales report to improve what is the worst local council planning authority in Wales.
“Plaid Cymru Councillors have turned Carmarthenshire into a rotten borough – where individuals believe that they can build anything without planning permission, anywhere in Carmarthenshire and not face any punishment by this council. Whilst the majority of our residents and businesses are law-abiding, the few are getting away with murder in this county and Plaid Cymru have no interest in representing those calling for fairness.
“Plaid Cymru Councillors, joined Independent Councillors in voting down calls to improve funding to our planning department, to regularly report on the enormous backlog for both planning applications and planning enforcement, and to bring in-house the hugely expensive privatised contracts secretly handed out to help clear up this administration’s mess.
“Their grand plan of copying the Conservative party, by paying out over Ā£100,000 of public money to private planning companies, having sat on a Ā£17,000 private report into the planning department for over a year isĀ scandalous.
“Whilst two officers of the planning department left this authority after the publication of the second report, Plaid Cymru and Independent Councillors have refused to apologise for the highest backlog inĀ planning and planningĀ enforcement in Wales, not a single Councillor has resigned their position as a result of theĀ failure and now they have pledged to bury their head in the sand by refusing to tackle the issue.
Ā
“We will not stand by as Plaid Cymru Councillors throw council employees under the bus for their own failure and refuse to ensure that planning law is appropriately enforced in Carmarthenshire.“
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