Local MP Neil Parish, bewildered by the Gittisham planning application in its earlier stages, had already arranged for it to be called in for decision by Secretary of State Eric Pickles even before the EDDC latest decision.

This will be a real test of so-called “sustainability in the National Planning Policy Framework: a reserve site if there had ever been a local plan, access by one narrow country road constrained by a bridge, reliance on cars to get to shops and other facilities, real worries that doctors and education establishments cannot cope, on the direct boundary of an AONB. The pill sugared by the “promise” of social housing which, as we know, disappears from successful planning applications like morning mist in high summer in East Devon.

And all totally avoidable if we had in place the Local Plan (and Community Infrastructure Levy) that EDDC has been “working on” since 2007.

Another planning application that is left to the local community (and its concerned MP) to fight thanks to EDDC’s officers and councillors.