Political View: Where is the transparency?
“All 60 councillors have been equally elected by the public to oversee and scrutinise council decisions”
This week, cabinet will take the next step in advancing our new local plan for the city, writes Conservative Group spokesman John Howard.
What is a local plan? It earmarks plots of land for intended development, after working with landowners and civic stakeholders along the way. As the government push for more housing, this brings increased targets for the local authority. If you don’t have the right numbers in the plan relative to the target, it means developers can make ‘predatory’ applications. So, for that reason, it’s vital to have an up-to-date plan.
However, central governments push for development means there are many changes to come. The right to ‘call-in’ planning applications, which our council has used well the last few years to allow scrutiny on more topical applications, is almost eradicated. I think this is a great loss to what local authorities do, the importance hearing the local voice with planning applications seems to be shut down.
We are also starting to hear that combined autjority mayors will have more intervention too. So, what does this all mean? In summary, a robust local plan is more important than ever, but also the thirst for development means that any discomfort felt in the new local plan could be worsened with greater government intervention than we’ve seen before.
Cabinet will also look at selling the Goods Shed and advancing the new pool. We have always supported the idea of having a food hall and this will help unlock the vision of the south bank, which I’ve mentioned many times before. There are rumblings about the bidding process which gives us cause for concern and is the agreement robust enough to ensure the towns funding is only given once the goods shed project is complete. You may wonder, how do we not know all these answers around the goods shed? It is because of the level of exemption in public papers. ‘Exclusion of the press and public’ is a common theme of recent cabinet meetings, and of course it can be with good reason, but at present our group is deeply concerned by a lack of transparency.
The current mood music is that only cabinet members can view exempt papers - that is 12 councillors out of 60 elected members. As a minority administration, Labour who say they lead on ‘transparency’ this is totally unacceptable. All 60 councillors have been equally elected by the public to oversee and scrutinise council decisions. The public didn’t pick 12 councillors from minority parties to have exclusive access to papers that no other member can see. We won’t let this rest; And the paper for the new swimming pool provision suggests another £6 million is needed for the pool, more borrowed money. We fear it won’t end here, inflation is still rampant and a spade hasn’t even been put into the ground yet. Of course, we all support a new pool, but there are concerns on the rapidly escalating costs which must be monitored.
On a happier note, I’m looking forward to the Great Eastern Run! I will be running for Anna’s Hope, and I’m joined by Councillors Mark Ormston and Kevin Tighe. We all donned the fairy wings for some photos, and can I say, what good sports everyone was, and we had such a giggle. There might not be so much laughter when the running starts but it’s for a fantastic local charity that the three of us are proud to support. I won’t share the picture of the three of us as this is a political column and the three of us are joining forces non-politically, but I know we would all be grateful for any donations via justgiving.com/team/3cllrsgorunning