| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Abolition of Chiswick Area Planning Committee is bad news for Chiswick | |
| Posted by: | Sam Hearn Cllr | |
| Date/Time: | 07/06/11 10:40:00 |
| George, I am sure that your views are equally valid to mine. After all you are paying for this service. But I would ask what has actually changed under the new arrangements? For the vaste majority of those submitting applications the decision was quite correctly already made under delegated powers by a planning officer. In the case of those applications that came before Area Planning Committees the vaste majority were also decided in the way that the planning officer had directed. In practice Councillors became unwilling arbitrators in disputes between neighbours. The planning issues were often very clear and in practice we could only "sugar the pill" for the unfortunate neighbour by recommendng minor amendments or deferring a decision. It may also be of interest that in those small number of cases where councillors chose to ignore the advice of planning officers applicants often either appealed or resubmitted a slightly amended applications that was sunsequently approved. In the case of major planning issues such as the CPZ or Kew Bridge the applications would still come before the Area Monitoring Committee for comment. The difference is that now I will free to take sides if I choose and to campaign actively "for" or "against" i.e. behave like a proper politician. You believe that "planning" has given us a very ugly heritage and it is hard to disagree with you. What I do not understand is how you believe an Area Planning Committee would make any significant difference. I note that I am the only one to have alluded to the possibility of corruption. This has been alleged in parts of Hounslow and in my view the more local the decision making process the more likely it is to happen. Phil Andrew's idea of making planning decisions at a Ward level would sadly make this almost an inevitablity. As Councillors we had to make decisions based on planning law and laid down council policy. Any 'maverick' decisions stood a good chance of being reversed on appeal. The issue of basements being dug under existing houses in Chiswick comes to mind. Did we really serve residents well by blocking some of these applications only to lose most on appeal? |