Examination of Witnesses (Questions 4560
- 4579)
4560. MR HORTON: Yes.
4561. CHAIRMAN: Now, apply that to this
case.
4562. MR HORTON: In this case yesterday
your Lordship, I think, was saying this Committee is the planning
authority.
4563. CHAIRMAN: Well, sort of.
4564. MR HORTON: I suppose technically
you are a committee of the planning authority, if we can try to
continue the analogy, and it is for that reason that I submit
that at this stage you are entitled to consider whether something
which a non-statutory consultee has brought before you—your
Lordship only referred to statutory consultees but I am sure you
accept that non-statutory ones as well may bring something to
the attention of the planning authority—is of such manifest
prima facie merit that it should have been properly examined in
the EIA. That is all I am saying.
4565. CHAIRMAN: Yes, and therefore we
could decide whether it is something that we ought to ask the
House to look at again.
4566. MR HORTON: Yes.
4567. CHAIRMAN: That is what I think
I said yesterday.
4568. MR HORTON: I thought you did, yes.
4569. CHAIRMAN: But you keep on saying
"objectivity" and I want to know where it lies.
4570. MR HORTON: I only say "objectivity"
to get round what is at the essence of Mr Elvin's argument, simply
that he has told you on behalf of the Promoters that the Promoters
decided, for reasons of their own, that it was not worth considering
as a main alternative and that should be the end of the matter.
4571. CHAIRMAN: No, I do not think anything
of the kind has been suggested. The only people who can look at
the alternatives in the first place are the Promoters.
4572. MR HORTON: Certainly.
4573. CHAIRMAN: They have to present
this under the EIA to the decision-making authority, have they
not?
4574. MR HORTON: Yes.
4575. CHAIRMAN: And it is not until that
stage that anybody can apply an objective test. Is that not right?
4576. MR HORTON: Yes.
4577. CHAIRMAN: And if that authority
which is going to apply the objective test is us by way of making
a recommendation to the House, it is for us to be satisfied that
the main alternatives have been examined.
4578. MR HORTON: That the alternatives
which should have been considered as main alternatives have been
examined.
4579. CHAIRMAN: I am not so sure about
that—the main alternatives which have been put forward in
the process leading up to the situation where the decision has
to be taken. You are trying to introduce new main alternatives.
Is that right?
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