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Save Capel campaigners declared themselves "shocked and dismayed" to learn that as many as 12 councillors who were voting on whether to take Tunbridge Wells Borough Council's Local Plan to the next stage may not have accessed key documents fundamental to demonstrating whether the plan was sound.
The revelation was made by Cllr David Hayward (Tunbridge Wells Alliance) during a full council debate, when he revealed that by 4pm that day, 12 councillors had not accessed a secure council document folder that contained key supporting policies for the plan, access to which had only been granted to councillors the day before.
His claims were not directly denied by head of planning Stephen Baughen.
Save Capel has been campaigning against the Local Plan in its existing form because of the high number of houses allocated to the parish, and in particular because of the inclusion of a garden village of 2,800 homes at the Hadlow Estate in Tudeley.
Later in the proceedings, Cllr Nicholas Pope (Tunbridge Wells Alliance) gave further details about the additional documents, explaining that there were around 40 draft documents in the folder which were not in the public domain.
They included reports from consultants tasked with assessing the overall sustainability of the Tudeley and East Capel proposals, and details of the master planning which has been carried out on East Capel.
He was supported by Cllr Dr Linda Hall (Con) who said: "We are being asked to vote for a plan many of whose documents we have not been able to read because they have still not been uploaded to the website.
"We cannot make sound judgements without seeing all the evidence."
Mr Baughen said he believed that members had all the information before them to make a decision on the plan, which they did, voting by 30 votes to six to accept it.
Dave Lovell, the chairman of Save Capel, said: "The role of the councillors was to assess whether the draft version of the Pre-Submission Local Plan was sound and ready to be put to consultation and inspection.
"How can they do that if they have not reviewed fundamental parts of the plan that say whether it is viable and sustainable?
"Some of those 12 may have accessed the documents in the final hour or two before the meeting, but even if they did, could they properly assess up to 40 documents in this time? It looked like many of the councillors voting would pass the plan regardless of its content."
But Tunbridge Wells council leader Alan McDermott denied that councillors were not fully informed.
He said: "It has been suggested that a number of councillors were unable to access key documents prior to a meeting on the Local Plan. In particular, it was suggested by a councillor that 12 councillors had not accessed a secure document folder, the reality is that no councillor would know accurately how many members did or did not access these documents.
"The Pre-Submission Local Plan is the outcome of countless, monthly meetings to which all councillors were invited and received the papers and minutes. It has involved hundreds of hours of discussion and extensive consultation with thousands of contributions.
"The key documents for the meeting, over 1,000 pages, were set out in the agenda. Questions are now being raised about other, more detailed evidence documents. The findings of these documents have been relayed to Members through-out the preparation of the plan and have been available to councillors since December 18 last year.
"As with all council decisions, councillors have been told at meetings and in emails, where to find the relevant documents and how to access them. In short, councillors had all the information available to them that was required to make a decision on the plan at this time.
"All of the detailed evidence documents will be placed on the council’s website in late February/early March, ahead of the public consultation which starts on March 26 for eight weeks."
