(Email dated 6 June 2012)
Dear Mr Macey,
I write with regards your recent letter (1st June), where you inform interested parties of a change to the examination timetable.
I would like to express my disappointment and dismay to read that you will no longer be undertaking an accompanied site visit as part of your examination. I am slightly shocked by your decision, given that you have expressed your intention to do so at a number of points thus far in the examination process, and also that you invited interested parties to submit suggestions of where they thought would be useful for you to consider making a visit to.
In your previous letter of the 28th May, you state that you had considered the possibility of an issue specific hearing in relation to visual impact and landscape being held, but that you had decided that the written evidence that had been submitted to you by this point would be better supplemented by a site visit.
It would seem that you have changed your stance on this issue in a period of 3 days. Given that no further written responses should have been received in this time period, I am left at odds to wonder what caused you to change your approach to this particular element of the examination.
Your letter of the 1st June seems to suggest that you had concerns over safety. Whilst I can appreciate that certain parts of the site may have presented safety issues should a large number of people be present at them, this should not be an issue at any site which is publicly accessible, and would have not been an issue at private addresses if people had been given a timed itinerary of the day. I presume that you have completed risk assessments of all of the sites you considered, including the ones you now state you will visit unaccompanied? Given that I am qualified to make risk assessments, I would be interested to see these.
Secondly, your letter states there is no need to have accompanied site visits, as the sites you propose to visit are publicly accessible, or relatively adjacent to publicly accessible land. This can only lead me to assume that you will not be making any visit to private property- be it land or residential- as part of your examination. If this is indeed the case, then I am very concerned about the credibility of your examination. Given the quantity of evidence that has been submitted through the written representations- both from those in support and those objecting to the proposal- I find it hard to see how you are going to make a balanced, impartial and informed analysis of any evidence related to residential visual impact (and indeed noise impact) without visiting residential properties. I would be interested to know how you propose to assess the information that has been presented to you in written form- as from a balanced perspective- one could say that it sits in favour of those objecting to the proposal.
Given the case law presented to you as part of the written representations (such as Gorsedd Bran), and the recent decision made in the High Court regarding Slipe Drove in Hemsby, and also the recent report which has been produced for the Senedd Plenary Committee regarding noise and wind turbines, I would of thought that you would have considered that there was no substitute for specific site visits.
There appears to be no context for your reminder regarding the purpose of an accompanied site visit, given that there is now no longer one occurring. I can only presume that this was a factor in your decision to not invite interested parties to accompany you, or to visit private addresses. Given the impeccable behaviour of those who attended the preliminary hearing, and the tone of the written submissions, this appears to be somewhat insulting to interested parties, in that there is almost an assumption that the site visits would have been used as an opportunity for unsolicited lobbying of yourself.
Whilst I may have to accept that you will maintain your position on this matter, even though it may be something that I may wish to challenge at a later date, I do not see any reason why you cannot inform interested parties of the sites that you intend to visit. I would not expect you to release the timings of your visit/s, but I think that as this is a public enquiry, that your considerations should be published so that people can make their own judgements about the probity of your examination. As part of this, it might also be useful to include those sites which were visited as part of the unaccompanied site visit/s made by yourself in the week of the preliminary hearing.
I believe you have received correspondence from my husband regarding an invitation to visit our home, and I would like to reiterate his sentiments here.
I look forward to your reply, and for your responses in relation to the questions and concerns I have raised above.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Claire Dugdale
(Email dated 4 July 2012)
Dear Sirs,
I am writing in respect of a letter which I sent to you for the attention of Mr Macey on the 6th June. This was regarding the site visits as part of the examination on the Brechfa West proposal.
I was wondering if you would be able to; a) let me know if this letter was received, and b) if it was received, when I might receive a reply?
I note from your website this morning that a letter from Jonathan Edwards MP on a similar matter has received a reply. The response he has received does not appear to answer his concerns, and likewise it does not address the questions I raised in my letter. The response appears to focus on the issue of the site visits being accompanied or unaccompanied. This does not address the concern that he, or I, have raised regarding a refusal to conduct either unaccompanied or accompanied visits to private residences.
I therefore look forward to receiving a reply to my questions, clarifying the issues directly.
Yours faithfully,
Mrs Claire Dugdale

Dear Ms Dugdale,
Thank you for your emails of 6 June and 4 July 2012. I apologise for the delay in responding and can confirm that we have received these.
The main reason for not responding any earlier was that I had hoped to be able to give you a more specific answer to the queries you had raised. I can assure you that Mr Macey has not yet made a final decision as to whether or not to visit any private properties. Should he decide that a visit of certain private properties is necessary then the consent of the owners of these properties will be sought and all Interested Parties made aware of his plans as required by rule 16 of the Infrastructure Planning (Examination Procedure) Rules 2010.
With regards to letting Interested Parties know where he has visited on his unaccompanied site visits, I do know that Mr Macey made reference to some areas he has visited in his introductory remarks at the hearings on noise and on transport and local access. He also explained in response to an invitation in the hearing on noise that it would not be appropriate for him to undertake confidential visits to individual properties. The recordings of these hearings are available on the Brechfa project page of the infrastructure planning portal in the hearings section.
I'm afraid that I cannot say any more at this time. It is the responsibility of Mr Macey as the Examining Inspector to determine how he conducts the examination and how he will report on it. His report will, of course, be published when the Secretary of State announces his decision on the application, and it will be for Mr Macey to explain his conclusions and how he has reached them.
yours sincerely
Simone Wilding