SIR – I read with utter disbelief in Saturday’s Worcester News the debacle surrounding the issuing of a “lawful development certificate” by city planning officers for the provision of an extension to an HMO in St John’s.

This had previously been rejected twice by the planning committee and subsequently by the government inspector.

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Something seems seriously wrong when planning officers can go against the planning committee and inspector decisions.

If all that was needed from day one was a certificate why was it not issued then, this would have saved the tax payer a lot of wasted money.

This seems gross incompetence on someone’s part. This incident raises a lot of quite serious questions and needs to be investigated independently.

R CLEWS

Worcester