| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Front page article re. area planning committees | |
| Posted by: | Adam Beamish | |
| Date/Time: | 09/06/11 15:24:00 |
| Having been out of the country for afew days it's been 'interesting' catching up with the various postings on this thread. I find it quite funny that someone can suggest that I'm naive about a profession I've worked in from a variety of angles (Council, major development, consultant, third party) for the last 13 years - actually it's not funny, it's a plain stupid suggestion. However, the same post does make a valid comment about planners' attitudes towards the intervention of the public. With remarkably good timing I today received the appeal decision about the case I'd referred to earlier, where basically Councillors made an absurd decision having no regard to the planning merits of the application, but were totally swayed by intense lobbying from basically an affluent bunch of nimbies who had the time and resources to bombard Officers and Councillors. In a very succinct decision, the Inspector allows the appeal and essentially says that when the Council refused the application, it completely forgot about the objectives of the planning system, and solely focused upon a personal campaign against the applicants themselves. That's often why planners appear to regard any intervention by the public as an imposition. In my time I've listened to /read lots of genuine concerns and points being well made by the public, sometimes I'll agree, sometimes I'll disagree, but I totally get where they are coming from. However, equally I've listened to lots of points and arguments made by the public which are quite simply absurd, but dare to say so and there's hell to pay. Working in the business as I do and always have, I don't understand this idea that the public's involvement in a planning application delays the process for planning officers - these days that isn't an issue very often at all, and with the exception of the above appeal I detailed, I can't think of a single recent job I've handled where the public have been an inconvenience to either me or the Council. Personally, regarding corruption in the planning system, the nearest I guess I've come is when either 1) Someone offered me a bottle of wine when I was investigating a breach of planning control at their property (which may have merely been hospitality). 2) I was asked, in a rather light hearted way, by a Councillor who'd asked me to visit a property where someone had breached planning control and the owner didn't want to remove the breach or submit an application, if I'd write a 'gentle' committee report about taking enforcement action. 3) I was called by a Councillor as one of his constituents was in a similar position to (2) and he expressed how 'we' really needed to help this constituent as he was a major financial contributor to the Councillor's political party. I should stress all of the above 'approaches' were recorded in the correct way in accordance with the Council's adopted procedures. Personally none of them were a big deal, I'd always just carry on in my normal professional way, I wouldn't immediately start jumping up and down making allegations that something dodgy was going on, because, especially with Councillors, I appreciated how they at least had to appear to their constituents that they were trying to do the best for them. As for Phil's Mogden points, it's impossible for anyone to answer other than the individual(s) involved - so I don't think it's appropriate to speculate. There's clearly some kind of allegation being placed on the table, but might it not be possible that the individuals were concerned that if the application got refused they would have to defend the decision at appeal and wouldn't have a leg to stand on ? - I can recall two times I had arguments with colleagues about such circumstances, one time in my view we shouldn't have recommended enforcement action but we did, Councillors agreed it and the notice was supported on appeal (1-0 against me), the other time I argued we couldn't take enforcement action as colleagues had messed up and we needed to be upfront about that, but got over-ruled and on appeal the notice got quashed and costs awarded against the Council for unreasonable behaviour (1-1). Just reading what Phil says about the 'approach' he was subjected to I immediately thought of the above, but as I say I don't think it's appropriate to speculate. |