I know you see it all the time in good journalism - the use of "the former" and the use of "the latter". Personally, I hate those expressions. When I read them, I always have to return to the previous sentence to work out what the journalist is referring to when he writes "the former" or "the latter". Think about how to make your writing better by not using these annoying and confusing expressions.
The problem with "the former" and "the latter" is that they force the reader to do arithmetic. You mention two things, then a sentence or two later you say "the latter", and the reader has to stop, scroll back in their mind, count which one came second, and only then carry on. Every time you make a reader stop and count, you have lost a little of them.
The fix is the easiest thing in the world: just name the thing again. If you mentioned the council and the developer, and you now mean the developer, write "the developer". Yes, you repeat the word. Good. Repetition of a plain noun is invisible to a reader and a hundred times clearer than a clever cross-reference.
There is an old fear, drummed into us at school, that repeating a word is a sin and you must always find an "elegant variation". Forget it. In journalism, clarity beats elegance every time. The reader never once thinks "how dull, he said developer twice". They simply understand you, which is the only thing that matters.
So strike "the former" and "the latter" out of your vocabulary. Name names, and let the reader sail straight through.