COMMUNITY leaders fear their concerns for a major housing scheme are not being heard by a newly formed council.

Members of Whitehaven Town Council discussed an upcoming appeal hearing against the decision to refuse plans for 370 houses at Harras Moor in Whitehaven, at a meeting held on Thursday.

Homes England lodged a government appeal after the application was refused by Copeland Council’s planning panel.

Cumberland Council, which took over services in April, has decided not to defend Copeland’s decision at the appeal hearing, due to take place today (Tuesday).

Speaking at the town council meeting, Brian O’Kane, who represents Whitehaven Central North, said: “I think several of us have got strong feelings about this.

“Our local representatives from all parties meet as a trained panel, listen to all the evidence and at that point decided to refuse it.

“It’s the members who go through the details, analyse it and then decide what’s going to happen.

“The Cumbrian representatives who are supposedly local, are the ones who should have a local perspective.

“You are supposed to be a member of the public, not an expert and therefore you give your opinion as a local representative in the area.

“We have on this planning panel, one local representative. Cumberland is making the decisions for each area.

“We are going to have somebody from Workington, Cockermouth and Carlisle - to what degree are they representative of the areas?

“Traffic on Harras Road and Caldbeck Road is going to be absolutely hell for people who live there.”

Alan Pearson, who represents Whitehaven South, said there had been no local representation during a recent site visit for new builds at Edgehill Park in Whitehaven.

He claimed after the site visit, one of the planning committee members had said, “let’s get back to civilisation – we’ll go back to Carlisle”.

Ryan Taylor, who represents the Hillcrest ward, said: “Talking to all the residents over the last few weeks, nobody wants it because of all the issues. There’s a catalogue of them.

“St Benedict’s School is gridlocked five days a week. It just goes on and on.

“Where do we stand now if Cumberland councillors are just going to bypass it?”

Cllr O’Kane said: “This is the start of the next few years. If we have such little input into planning decisions, why bother commenting? It’s all going to be futile.

“What ever is happening in our area is going to be decided by people who don’t live within 50 miles of the place. It’s got to stop.

“This planning application probably affects the best part of 6,000 people.”

Graham Roberts, who represents the Harras ward, said: “We were frightened when local government reform was first mooted that this scenario would become apparent.

“Unfortunately, it has become apparent. There is no local committee as we had on the old system and therefore democracy has been taken further away from the public.”