ON Thursday, the Wentworth Street superstore saga reaches another phase in this costly council tax-payer exercise, but what might happen next?

If it is approved, then there is no doubt there will be a legal challenge which will clearly concentrate on an earlier planning inspector’s comments when he told the district council it had got the Wentworth Street superstore decision lawfully wrong. That cost the council tax-payers in excess of £200,000, in legal fees alone.

This time, a 300-page document has been sent to all planning committee members and, in simple terms, the officers, despite the inspector’s report and comments, are still recommending approval. If every member does manage to read all the documentation some will, no doubt, follow faithfully the officer recommendations and, by their action, jointly between officers and perhaps six members only, trigger yet another legal challenge via the Secretary of State. This will require further high-quality, but expensive legal involvement.

If, as is highly likely, such a challenge makes reference to the earlier Government inspector’s comments and to the findings of a number of other consultative documents regarding growth, access and sequential capacity, then the planners will lose again, and those responsible, together with the planning officers who produced the recommendation, will be morally and directly responsible for the council tax-payer, yet again, footing a very substantial bill.

The alternative would be easy. If the planning committee refuses the application, the applicants would clearly appeal. That way the planners would not have to use costly legal experts to defend their decision, and it would be seen to be a clear and democratic decision by the planning committee.

The issue is clear. If those planning members read carefully all the evidence both for and against the application, it is in their hands to act, both responsibly and at the same time reflecting both local opinion and common sense, causing far less grief to the council tax-payers and especially, themselves, with elections looming only a year away. In the terms of chess, the end-game is only beginning, but a check manoeuvre is possible, or are members and officers pawns in the developer’s game-plan?

David Lloyd-Williams, Malton and Norton town councillor, chairman of the Malton and Norton Area Partnership