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Update

The Penybanc application was rejected, partly on the grounds of concerns over the impact on the language it seems. Rejection of an application which has been recommended for acceptance by the officers is a rare event indeed in Carmarthenshire. One of the last occasions this happened was at Waungilwen near Drefach Felindre. On that occasion the officers refused to accept the decision, and eventually got it reversed.

Watch this space. It will also be interesting to see how many of the usual suspects voted in favour of the application.

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As reported previously a company domiciled in Guernsey and represented by an agent living in Berkshire would like to expand its existing planning permission for a site just outside Ammanford from 141 houses to 336.

The Planning Committee decided in October that it had better go and take a look at the site, and the application will come back before them today.

Anyone reading the planning officer's report can hardly fail to notice that the plan has attracted almost universal opposition from local people and their representatives, and all of the agencies involved which are not under direct council control have expressed either serious concerns or are in outright opposition to it.

Despite this, the planning officers are recommending acceptance.

The list of concerns and objections is a very long one, but one of the biggest fears concerns the impact on the Welsh language.

The Welsh Language Board (since replaced by the Commissioner) was unusually strong in its criticism of the proposals, and the planning officers have spent a great deal of time and effort on refuting the Board's arguments. In places, the council comes close to accusing the Board of being unprofessional. The Board makes "broad and unfounded" assertions that there is no local need for a development on this scale, the Planning Department fumes.

Fortunately the Board no longer exists, because making what the council considers to be an unfounded or unsubstantiated allegation would suffice to put the Board on the council's blacklist of abusive complainants.

Coming only a week after the Census figures revealed that Carmarthenshire has seen a bigger decline in numbers able to speak Welsh than any other Welsh local authority - and that by quite some margin - it is hard not to conclude that the county council has to shoulder a significant portion of the blame.

Not that any of this will bother the Independent and Labour councillors on the committee who habitually vote as the planning officers have instructed.