And the statistics to prove this are where exactly?

Look at the planning inspectorate website, you have to search through
the individual cases to see which ones have been permitted, I have a
complaint going through them at the moment which is why I got interested
in how many were being passed at appeal level, do you know different?
We have had a couple of absolutely scandalous developments passed
locally which were opposed by everyone except the planning inspector and
the developers


Obviously I don't know about the individual case you refer to. However, to
substantiate your statement one has to look at it on a vaild statistical
basis i.e what percentage of appeals were successful in one period compared
with another. The last time I looked at this locally it did not alter much
from year to year. What many people don't comprehend is that inspectors have
to make a judgement based on planning law rather than bowing to local
opinion. It is not unusual for a council's paid planning staff to recomend
approval and have this ignored by the council members.

Peter Crosland