Councillor, you need to check your phone and e-mails…

I have been doing this for over 20 years now and sometimes there are still things that happen that astonish me… 

So, let me set the scene for you: fairly innocuous scheme, a regeneration scheme on a very run-down brown field site. First there was a problem with a sudden deluge of objections (a while after the public consultation that was very quiet). Enough for the applicant to go knock on the doors of the neighbours… c.a. 60 objections from neighbours and only five objectors were actually found. The objections are of course anonymised, so there is no way of asking Mr Smith at 34 Firs Avenue if he indeed did object… or was it perhaps one of his neighbours who thought they could “help” him by providing an objection on his behalf… 

Then the applicant tried to contact the ward Councillors. Quite right, as they should consult with them. They have been elected by the people to represent them and their views, so indeed it is the job of the Councillor to engage with developers. 

The ward where the site is located is represented by three Councillors. One of them picked up the phone, and a meeting took place, and the design was amended following input from the Councillor. As indeed it should. Democracy working and a Councillor fulfilling their democratic duty. 

However, the other two Councillors didn’t respond… not to e-mails, not to letters, not to phone calls, not to text messages, not to WhatsApp messages. NOTHING. So, eventually, you give up as clearly the exercise is futile and the Councillor is clearly not going to engage.

Fast forward to the day of the Planning Committee and the very Councillor who didn’t respond to ANY communications at the time raises an objection that they had “not been consulted”!!! (no, really, I am not making this up). We have a communications log to prove that every possible effort had been made to consult and have a conversation. 

Now, I appreciate that Councillors can get busy and miss things but perhaps talk to your colleagues, check your inbox, listen to your messages, read your text and WhatsApp messages! 

So, long story short, the application determination is now delayed, and I hope that the Councillor will now engage in a meaningful way… 

But it is not all bad news! 

We had our first outing to a Reform UK run Planning Committee and it was a raging success! We got a great consent for our client. There was a very well informed debate amongst the Councillors on the committee and they had read their papers and the briefing note and they were very pragmatic in their approach. This was also largely due to the fact that we have a Reform UK consultant now who made a very compelling case to his fellow Reformers! 

Until next week,

Henry