Plans for replacement barn on grazing land put on hold due to lack of councillors at meeting, to be discussed at future committee meeting

PLANS by a Powys County Councillor to build a replacement barn for livestock on land used for grazing will be on ice until a future Planning Committee meeting.
This is because there were not enough councillors at the meeting on Thursday, August 10, to decide the application which had been made by Cllr Jonathan Wilkinson for land at Allt y Maen, Meifod.
Planning applications by Powys councillors as well as council staff are brought in front of the Planning committee for a decision.
Cllr Wilkinson is himself a member of the committee and due to declaring an interest in the item was not at the meeting.
Fellow Conservative, Cllr Adrian Jones had also declared an interest and left the meeting for the item as he and Cllr Wilkinson are related.
Committee vice-chairman, Cllr Gareth Jones who chaired the meeting in the absence of chairman Cllr Karl Lewis, asked whether the committee was still “quorate” following Cllr Jones’ departure.
Democratic Services officer, Carol Johnson said: “No, with Cllr Adrian (Jones) declaring an interest, we go down to eight members.
“That means we can’t consider the application.”
Cllr (Gareth) Jones said: “In that case we will have to defer that until the next meeting.”
Document lodged with the proposal show that Cllr Wilkinson uses the land to graze sheep and cattle and that a building there had fallen into disrepair.
The proposed new building is a single storey structure of a rectangular plan layout measuring 15.07metres by 30.51 metres.
Meifod Town Council had “not supported” the proposal due to a lack of detail on the overall height of the building which will be close to the A495 road.
Powys planning officer Hannah Miller had recommended that the committee approve the application subject to a number of conditions.
There had been concerns earlier that morning that the meeting might need to be cancelled due to the number of councillors absent on the day.
Usually, 17 councillors are expected to attend Planning committee meetings, on August 10, eight were absent. ‌​‌​‌​​​‍‌​‌​​‌‌‌‍‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌‌​​