Dear Sir,
May I commiserate with Councillor Morgan following his
failed attempt to establish an investigation into breaches of Planning
Consents.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but the attitude of the
Council is well summed up by the breathtakingly complacent statement from Councillor
Morris that he didn’t think that there was a problem with the Planning system.
Oh, really?
As a member of the Planning Committee, Councillor Morgan
needs to look a bit closer to home. The problem isn’t to do with Mr Smith/Patel
sticking an extra couple of feet on his extension, it is to do with the
Department of Development and Regeneration deciding that this or that is going
to happen and bending over backwards to make sure that it happens irrespective
of the rigid constraints of the Planning Process. The supine Planning Committee
are complicit in this.
Without wishing to be boring, the Tesco at Little Lever
application is a perfect example of this. There is still no doubt in my mind
that let alone a coach and horses, a complete wagon train was driven through
the requirements of the Planning Process to achieve approval. Even the
stipulation of the Committee that the Traffic Arrangements be reconsidered was
ignored with the result that upon completion we’ll be faced with gridlock.
Now, the proposed Middlebrook development is deferred on the
pretence of traffic issues.
A more likely reason is to avoid upsetting developers
Emerson who are involved with the Council’s favourite development at the Loco
Works and Bluemantle who financed the Director’s recent jolly to Cannes
and have spent five years not financing the Church
Wharf development.
As to the rest of the town, it doesn’t take much looking
around to discover the ‘successes’ of the Planning system. Odeon – Lido
– make up your own list.
Finally, the passing of plans for the £48m new bus station
linked to the railway station just as rail services are being reduced to a
level not much above those in the film ‘The Titfield Thunderbolt.’ What vision!.
I fervently hope that the Electors of the Borough will take
full advantage of next May’s Local Elections to show Councillor Morris exactly
what they think of his Planning System.
Paul Richardson
Ripon Close
Little Lever.
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