A COMPLAINT about the Infrastructure and Environment Department’s handling of retrospective planning applications and statutory nuisance complaints relating to medicinal-cannabis cultivator Northern Leaf has been upheld.
The decision by the States of Jersey Complaints Panel comes after Northern Leaf faced concerns from neighbours of its Retreat Farm premises about “unbearable noise” and “disgusting smells” and was told to remove certain equipment from the site after failing to successfully appeal against a planning notice.
The matter considered by the Complaints Panel, chaired by Geoffrey Crill, centred around the Infrastructure and Environment Department’s “handling and lack of regulation” regarding retrospective planning applications made by Northern Leaf, as well as enforcement and noise abatement notices that had been issued to the company.
The Panel reached a number of conclusions, including that the Department had taken an “unreasonable” amount of time to act in respect of odours emanating from the site.
It also criticised the department’s application of a so called ‘sniff test’ threshold, which “placed an unreasonable burden of proof on complainants”, as well as delays in bringing forward an abatement notice for noise and any action in relation to the odours.
Mr Crill said: “The fact that no precedents existed should not have prevented action from being taken by the Department.”
He added: “The Board considers it unacceptable that the Department simply extended the monitoring of odours in order to meet a threshold that had already been acknowledged as unworkable.”
Chief officer Andy Scate said that, while the department acknowledged the decision of the Complaints Panel and its role in providing oversight, “we do not accept the findings presented in the report”.
“We completely refute the suggestion that the department acted contrary to the law or behaved in a way that was unjust,” he said.
- More in tomorrow’s JEP.
