Tesco at Little Lever -1

Not blogged for ages but I feel that 2001 will be a very controversial year for Little Lever in relation to the following.

Early in December it came to light by means of a circular from Eric Hyde that approaches had been made to houses on Ainsworth Rd by Mason Owen of Liverpool with a view to purchasing those houses.

To cut a long story short, it was believed that they were acting on behalf of Tesco with a view to creating an access to the old Pennine Pets site to facilitate the building of a supermarket there.

This map shows the site with the old Pennine Pets factory still there




The buildings burned down and have subsequently been demolished.




The supermarket plan was more or less confirmed in the words of Councillor Mary Woodward on the Little Lever Info forum

“Its now pretty much out that Tesco are looking into putting a multi million pound investment store in little lever, it will be proposed to replace the already store with a much larger one. They have suggested that they will pay for the much needed Highway works on the corner of Church/Lever and Ainsworth Rd. Talks are still underway and we will hopefully know more real soon.”


Way back in 2006, Wainhomes had submitted a planning application to Bolton Council for the building of 37 Houses and 44 Apartments on this site. (74765/06)

This application was approved in October 2007 with the condition that the development started within three years.

Now, the guy who owns the site is called Mark Seddon and in amongst the Planning Documents was a draft agreement for him to sell the site to Wainhomes. This apparently fell through when the market conditions changed Wainhomes’ view of the value of the site to them.

In October this year the time period for the Planning Consent expired and Wainhomes re-applied for an extension of this for a further two years. (85003/10).The decision target date for this was 23rd December but no decision has yet been posted on the Bolton Council Website.

It is unlikely that this can be refused and if it were it would surely be allowed on appeal.

So we have the bizarre situation where there are two plans for the same site circulating around Bolton Town Hall – one for residential which has already been approved and one for a supermarket which is the subject of ‘Confidential Talks’

One interested resident has already submitted a FOI request about these talks and has received the following reply

In response to your request for information you requested:

“Any correspondence with the Planning Department and any supermarket chain or developer representing supermarkets in relation to the land that is covered under planning permission applications 85003/10 and 80410/08, which relates to Lever Street, Little Lever. If you could also provide me with any information and correspondence between the planning department and the local ward councillors both past and present, with regards to the above site.”

Your request has been considered under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 which is the legislation which applies in requests for information which relate to the environment.

In this case, we consider that the exemption under regulations

• 12(5)(e) The confidentiality of commercial or industrial information where such confidentiality is provided by law to protect a legitimate economic interest

and

• 12(5)(f) The interests of the supplier of the information

applies to this information as we believe releasing the information would unfairly prejudice the interests of the parties involved and public interest in withholding outweighs public interest in disclosing.

At this moment there is interest in developing the site for retail. However, the information which has been provided to date is commercially sensitive. It is our opinion that any third party which wishes to consult with Bolton Council informally on issues relating to development and planning, should have an expectation of confidentiality in those discussions."

Interestingly, Bolton Council have not considered the request under the Freedom of Information Act but have quoted the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

A quick persusal of the said Regulations make it clear on any interpretation of the English Language that they are sod all to do with building supermarkets – as follows

This is the definition of information relating to the environment as contained in the regulations

“Environmental Information” has the same meaning as in Article 2(1) of the Directive, namely any information in written, visual, aural, electronic or any other material form on—

(a)
the state of the elements of the environment, such as air and atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape and natural sites including wetlands, coastal and marine areas, biological diversity and its components, including genetically modified organisms, and the interaction among these elements;

(b)
factors, such as substances, energy, noise, radiation or waste, including radioactive waste, emissions, discharges and other releases into the environment, affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment referred to in (a);

(c)
measures (including administrative measures), such as policies, legislation, plans, programmes, environmental agreements, and activities affecting or likely to affect the elements and factors referred to in (a) and (b) as well as measures or activities designed to protect those elements;

(d)
reports on the implementation of environmental legislation;

(e)
cost-benefit and other economic analyses and assumptions used within the framework of the measures and activities referred to in (c); and

(f)
the state of human health and safety, including the contamination of the food chain, where relevant, conditions of human life, cultural sites and built structures inasmuch as they are or may be affected by the state of the elements of the environment referred to in (a) or, through those elements, by any of the matters referred to in (b) and (c);

This sounds like another sleight of hand by the beloved Mr Eastwood in his time-honoured manner of re-interpreting the lawof the land.

I have suggested to the the submitter of the FOI request that he insists that the request is treated under the FOI Act and any exemptions from the release of the information be under articles in that Act.

We’ll see what happens.

Elected Mayors. Alan Eastwood. The Mystery of the Missing Paragraph.

So you thought the Elected Mayors saga was over with. Not yet it isn't!

I'm the first to admit that I hadn't got much of a clue when I started investigating this subject but as time goes on I find out a little bit more and learn even more than that.

Just to refresh the memory.

I said in a letter to the Bolton News that I would contact the Secretary of State to see if the Consultation Guidelines (58 pages) applied to the 2009 Consultation and this I duly did by e-mail. I also circulated this to the Local MP's.

My MP, Dr Brian Iddon replied with a copy of a letter he had received from Alan Eastwood in answer to a similar query from another of his constituents. Since this contained the stock answer that the Guidelines didn't apply I asked Dr Iddon to chase this up with the Secretary of State.

This he did and I duly received a letter from the Minister for Local Government, Ms Rosie Winterton which effectively just stated the position that Bolton Council was maintaining. She said it was a legal matter and it would not be appropriate for her to intervene.

This being completely unacceptable I wrote back to her saying that I knew what the 'Law according to Alan Eastwood' was but wanted to know what the 'Law according to the Secretary of State' was.

Not yet having received an acknowledgement or reply I have just re-approached Dr Iddon to see if he would be so kind as to chase it up.

In the meantime I ploughed through the Bolton Council Website and came up with the following.

__________________________________________________

On 24 August 2009, Alan Eastwood submitted a report on 'Executive Arrangements' to the Executive which laid out the requirements of the 2007 Amendment to the 2000 Act.

In relation to Consultation he wrote the following.

3.1 The 2000 Act provides that “before drawing up its proposals” a change to the form of the Executive, the Council “must take reasonable steps to consult with the Local Government electors for and other interested persons in” the Council’s Area.

3.2 The Department for Communities and Local Government has confirmed that it does not intend to issue any guidance to Local Authorities as to what will constitute “reasonable steps” to consult Local Government electors, and since the 2000 Act does not provide for “specified period of consultation, nor detailed requirements – the Authority has the flexibility to decide the appropriate level of consultation”.

Paragraph 3.2 above is basically stating the Council's stance on Guidance with which it persists.

But he also wrote this.

"3.5 It is proposed that the consultation should include the following:

• Send a copy of the consultation document to Members of the Citizens Panel.Putting an article in Bolton Scene outlining the Consultation and inviting responses.

• Putting a public notice in the Bolton News announcing the beginning of the consultation period and inviting a response to the document.
• Putting copies of the consultation document in public buildings such as local libraries, area offices and One Stop Shops.

• Putting a copy of the Consultation document and on-line response form on the Council’s website.

• Using any existing forms where the Council communicates with local electors and other interested persons (including Area Forums, CBS and Community Groups. Particular attention should be paid to hard to reach groups to ensure that the consultation does not exclude them."

The report amongst other things recommended that the Executive -

"1. Delegate the drawing up of a consultation document and the finalisation of the consultation process to the Director of Chief Executive’s in consultation with the Leader of the Council and the Leaders of the opposition parties."

The Executive approved the report.
_________________________________________________

The report was then submitted to a meeting of the whole Council on 2nd September on a motion that was passed by the Council.

This, I suggest, was passed by the Councillors on the basis that should all of the above means of Consultation be incorporated into the Consultation Process then indeed the Council would have done all that could be reasonably expected of them.

Five days later the Consultation started using all the above means except those in the last paragraph.- ie

"• Using any existing forms where the Council communicates with local electors and other interested persons (including Area Forums, CBS and Community Groups. Particular attention should be paid to hard to reach groups to ensure that the consultation does not exclude them."

Now forgive me for thinking that although drawing up of the Consultation document and finalisation of the process was delegated, it was delegated on the basis that all the proposed methods would be included.

To my mind, the passing of the motion by the whole Council endorsing the whole report was tantamount to an instruction to Mr Eastwood and the Leaders of the party groups to implement the entire contents of the report - not to leave out bits they didn't like.

It wasn't a lack of money. The Council had approved a budget for this of up to £20,000. According to Alan Calvert the figure actually spent was £4,300.

The amazing thing is that had the means of communication contained in the last paragraph of the proposals been incorporated in the Consultation Process, then the original Guidance would have damned near been met.

Why was this paragraph left out????

Surely there was no intention to mislead the entire body of Councillors._

___________________________________________________

Note also that Mr Eastwood in his report refers only to the 2000 Act and the 2000 Act as amended. So, in his own words he is agreeing with me that the legislation is the 2000 Act.

There is no doubt that the Guidance (58 pages) applies to the 2000 Act so how can he say it doesn't.
___________________________________________________

As above he says:-

"The Department for Communities and Local Government has confirmed that it does not intend to issue any guidance to Local Authorities as to what will constitute “reasonable steps” to consult Local Government electors, and since the 2000 Act does not provide for “specified period of consultation, nor detailed requirements – the Authority has the flexibility to decide the appropriate level of consultation”.

When he reports back to the Executive and subsequently the Council on the results of the Consultation on 28 October 2009 he again states

1.2.2 However, the 2000 Act does not provide either for any specific form of public consultation or for any specific consultation period.

In addition, the Department for Communities and Local Government decided not to issue any guidance to Local Authorities as to what the Department considers would constitute “reasonable steps”. In relation to the public consultation required by the 2000 Act. As a result each Local Authority has had to reach its own decision as to the form and level of public consultation that it considers to be appropriate.

(First of all the 2000 Act does provide for the public consultation to follow the Guidelines (58 pages))
_________________________________________________

In regards to the statements above (that the DCLG has confirmed that it doesn't intend to issue Guidance) and (the DCLG decided not to issue any Guidance) I have submitted a Freedom of Information request to Bolton Council in relation to the above as follows.


"Could you please provide me with copies of any communication, printed, written, or in e-mail form, or details of any verbal communication by any means, between the Department for Communities and Local Government and Bolton Council which conveys and confirms to Bolton Council the following information :-

1) ....... "that it (the DCLG) does not intend to issue any guidance to Local Authorities as to what will constitute “reasonable steps” to consult Local Government electors" as stated in Paragraph 3.2. above.

2) that it (the DCLG)...... "decided not to issue any guidance to Local Authorities as to what the Department considers would constitute “reasonable steps In relation to the public consultation required by the 2000 Act”. as stated in Paragraphs 1.2.1 and 1.2.2 above."

I await the reply with interest.

As a belt and braces approach I intend to submit a Freedom of information request asking for the same information from the Department for Communities and Local Government since the odds are that Bolton Council will try to block the first one.
__________________________________________________

Area Forum.

At the last Area Forum for Little Lever and Darcy Lever I submitted the following question (or rather statement).


"That the Area Forum, as one of, if not the, principal means of connection between the Council and the Electors, regrets it was not included in the Consultation on change of Governance in Sept-Oct 2008 (Elected Mayors). Further to this could the Area Forum request that the author of the Consultation, the Director of the Chief Executives Department,Mr Alan Eastwood, attend the next Area Forum to explain why this was the case and why he felt that our Area Forum wasn't important enough to be included."

The minutes of this meeting have yet to appear and have to go through an 'approval' process and I am uncertain whether the above statement will get as far as being included.

If it does then I will suggest that other Area Forums should act in a similar fashion.

If it doesn't, I'll be bloody annoyed.
___________________________________________________

This got me thinking about the status of the Area Forum so I went back to the Council Constitution.

In Part 7 of the Constitution - The Council's Management Structure, we find the following.

Area Forums

(1) To encourage and promote discussion on and involvement in the way in which
Council and other services are planned and delivered within the area.

(2) To positively engage local people, organisations and businesses in the work of the area forum and to ensure that their views are represented to the Council and other partners.

(3) The provision, management and review (in accordance with approved Council
policy, standing orders and financial regulations) of those services activities and
resources allocated to the Forum by the Council.

(4) To refer to the Council (or Executive, Executive Member, Scrutiny Committee or
other committee or group, as appropriate) any matter concerning the Council which
has been raised at a meeting of the Forum and is not within the responsibilities
allocated to the Forum.

(5) To be consulted in relation to the exercise of any function of the provision of any service (by or on behalf of the Council, or in partnership between the Council and any other organisation) which specifically relates to or affects the Forum area and (where appropriate and practicable) the impact on the Forum area of any corporate
policy or other matter.


Firstly it could be argued that Paragraph 5 requires that the Area Forum should have been included in the Consultation .

It could further be argued that my question/ statement should be included in the minutes and acted upon by virtue of possibly Paragraph 2 and certainly Paragraph 4.

Let us see what all this flushes out.

Paul

Bolton Council - An idiots guide to Local Democracy - Part One

Bet you've been wondering what I've been up to. No?. - you should have been.
Unfortunately I can't Blog about this at the present time.

When I started off my little campaign for stopping and reversing the decline in Little Lever Village Centre, I really and naively believed that Bolton Council was run by the 60 Elected Councillors, - whichever party having the majority being 'in charge' at any particular point in time.

So, if the Labour lot were in charge we could expect a dose of Labour policies etc.

Perhaps this perception arose from my memories of the halcyon days when it seemed that Councillors were from the 'great and the good' of the Borough, selflessly giving their time and energies from a sense of civic duty and pride.

More than this, the Aldermen were, amongst the Councillors, the 'wise men' of the town whose prudence, self discipline and moral rectitude was reflected in the decisions made on our behalf, thus allowing us all to sleep soundly in our beds in the sure knowledge that all would be well in the Town Hall.

My contacts with everything 'Town Hall' over the last eighteen months have only confirmed to me that whilst I have spent the last forty years believing the above, things have been ' a-changing'

This is not to say that any of today's Councillors have fewer good intentions for the well being of the town and its inhabitants or are more self serving. No - I can't say that.

What does appear to have changed however, as with National Government, is the pernicious introduction of the structures and strictures within which the Elected Members operate and the plethora of rules, regulations, protocols, concordats and such like straight-jackets which, having forced out common sense and invited in political correctness and all the elf'n safety nonsense, leave the poor ward Councillor as emasculated as a eunuch in a knocking shop.

So, I thought I would take the lid off the Town Hall and, in an occasional series of Blogs, investigate and examine how it operates today and where the centre of power lies.

I don't know where this will lead me but I'm pretty convinced that should the Town Clerks of old trouble themselves to read the end result, they will be spinning in their graves.

Paul Richardson