A planning decision for a controversial landfill at Kennford has been deferred just days after Devon’s planning manager recommended that council bosses refuse to give the site the go-ahead.

The fate of the proposed landfill on fields at Lower Brenton Farm, near the Orange Elephant, was supposed to be decided at a Devon County Council Development Management Committee meeting on Wednesday (February 5). However, Devon County Council has now deferred the decision until the April meeting after applicant BT Jenkins requested additional time to submit more information in response to two of the draft reasons for refusal.

District and parish councillors and local residents that have campaigned against the landfill were ‘shocked and angered’ by the last-minute turnaround. Campaign group, Residents Against the Landfill is ‘demanding clarification as to how and why this decision was made’.

Nearby Kenn Parish Council said it was ‘absolutely dismayed’ at the delay, which it described as a ‘very strange and questionable decision’.

A report published by Devon’s County Planning Manager last week recommended that the council refuse planning permission because ‘the proposed development would have an unacceptable landscape and visual impact’.

Developer BT Jenkins has been eyeing up the Kennford site for some years. The firm’s original planning application for a landfill of 1.2 million cubic metres of inert waste and a recycling facility was withdrawn in 2022. BT Jenkins then submitted a revised application in 2023 for a smaller landfill for 700,000 cubic metres of inert waste.

The Clyst St Mary-based earth-moving, plant hire and landfill firm currently operates the Trood Lane recycling and inert landfill site. However, this site is nearing the end of its life, having exhausted its permitted capacity, and the site at Lower Brenton Farm was intended as a replacement.

BT Jenkins said it had listened to feedback after its original planning submission and had changed its plans in its subsequent planning application in response. But concerns remain about the safety of people using public rights of way around the site and about the impact the site will have on the character and view of the nearby Peamore Park and Garden heritage site. The County Planning Manager also points out that the planning application and accompanying environment statement ‘fail to adequately address the human health implications of the proposed development’.

Members of Residents Against the Landfill, which has been campaigning against the development, were initially encouraged by the Planning Manager report recommending refusal. Many members of the group had planned to attend the meeting on February 5. They are now organising a ‘countryside walk’ at the same time as the planning meeting to ‘walk the very footpaths that would be ruined by the proposed landfill’.

The planning application attracted objections from 701 individuals or households. A petition opposing the proposed landfill site with 3,325 signatures was submitted to Devon County Council in November 2024. Additional objections were also submitted by the parish councils in Exminster, Kenn and Shillingford St George, a local primary school, garden and wildlife groups, cycling and walking groups and Action on Climate Change in Teignbridge.

Teignbridge District Council’s planning department are also unhappy with the landfill scheme amid concerns that it will disrupt proposed house building in the area.