I was informed on Friday that a key argument in favour of the planning application behind Stansted’s main shopping street at Cambridge Road has been based on false data.

The applicant’s transport statement says that the floor area of the demolished buildings that stood on the site until the beginning of 2013 was 7,973 square metres. That is very strange. The total site area is only just over 4,000 square metres! As only about half of the site was covered with buildings, the applicant’s claim could only have been achieved with four-storey buildings. We don’t have four-storey warehouses and furniture shops in this part of Stansted!

This is important. Essex Highways is believed to base its calculations on the acceptability of a new planning application by comparing how much traffic was theoretically generated by the site in the past with what the current application would be expected to produce. Their calculations are based on the floor area of buildings before and after.

Yes, you’ve guessed what has been going on. If the calculation of past traffic is based on four-times reality, then any new application based on real building sizes is likely to throw up an expected big reduction in traffic.  On that basis, the planners will recommend approval, regardless of community protests that it will aggravate traffic congestion and make today’s parking disaster even worse.

Planning and highways officers from Uttlesford and Essex have now gone away to reassess the situation. What alarms me is that this false data has been used by applicants for several years and no one spotted until now that Stansted does not have four-storey shops and warehouses!!!

I am grateful that a neighbouring property owner spotted the cock-up.