“Hello, I’m from the Environment Agency and I’m here to help!”
5th September 2007
Chief Executive Baroness Barbara Young struck a suitably optimistic note for the opening of the Members’ School.
Now councillors in areas hard hit by this summer’s inundations will be looking for another promise to be fulfilled: “The cheque is in the post” for that long awaited package of flood defence measures.
Councillors looking for a definitive view on where, when and how they should get involved in negotiations over development projects would have been out of luck. Developer Trevor Osborne sees the benefits of members having a detailed role in commenting on schemes as they climb off the drawing board, even down to the level of advising on what colour roof tiles are likely to pass muster with the local planning committee. But Prof John Punter of the Design Commission for Wales insists that members should not be trying to second guess development control officers. In his view, member involvement in design should be at the strategic level, setting the policy agenda and leaving officers to get on with the detailed discussion.
Is planning political? The suggestion is enough to send some councillors into meltdown mode. But any activity that involves control exercised in the public interest implies a political value judgement. Whether it’s party political is another matter. Russell Harris QC recalled the comment of an aged judge, assured that a local planning authority was within its rights to bring enforcement powers to bear on a landowner coining £7,000 a day from an unauthorised parking operation: “That sounds a tad socialist…”
