A CONTROVERSIAL meeting of East Lothian Council’s planning committee lasted less than 30 minutes and left a woman in tears.

The decision to hold a special meeting of the committee during the council’s summer recess in the Town House, Haddington, was branded “bizarre” by SNP opposition leader Councillor Stuart Currie.

The agenda had just one live item to be decided and two sets of minutes from previous committee meetings to be approved.

And the live item involved an application to build an extension on a private house.

Mr Currie, who did not attend the meeting, which was called a full two weeks before councillors officially return to business, criticised the decision.

He said: “It was agreed before council broke that we would have a special meeting for urgent business if required. To have a full blown planning committee in the middle of a summer recess for an extension to a house is bizarre.”

The application to extend the two-storey property at May Terrace, North Berwick, was put forward by homeowner Russell Grey.

It received four written objections from neighbours.

Speaking for herself and on behalf of those neighbours, Mrs Agnes Greenwood said the extension would bring the house to within three metres of her boundary.

She appealed to councillors to reject the planning officer’s recommendation to approve the application.

Mrs Greenwood said: “My husband and I have lived in our home for 24 years; we have elderly neighbours who moved in when the houses were first built in 1973.

“This proposed extension will dwarf our house and overshadow 63 per cent of our boundary.

“We will have the loss of sunlight for several hours every afternoon, 365 days a year for the rest of our lives.”

Planning officers told the committee they had carried out sunlight tests which suggested the extension would block the sun from 22 per cent of the garden when guidelines allowed for 25 per cent.

Ward councillor Jim Goodfellow, who called the decision before the committee, called on his colleagues to reject the application, saying the loss of sunlight would have a “significant” impact on neighbours.

He was backed by Councillor Peter MacKenzie, who said: “I have been impressed by Mrs Greenwood’s comments. It is not just the open sunlight, it is the whole mission of the project and gloomy aspect it will lend to her garden.”

However, fellow councillors, while sympathetic, said they could see no reason to reject the application.

Ward councillor Tim Day said: “Whilst I have real sympathy with the objectors, I cannot see a reason to reject the application.”

The application was approved and a tearful Mrs Greenwood left the meeting.