Councillor Robinson - April 2019

[Malcolm Robinson]

April 2019.

 

First of April and straight into a corporate scrutiny meeting.  At least this time there was no mention of potential criminality!  We had several previous cabinet reports to acknowledge and then future ones to scrutinise and advise on.

First one was a potential Cultural Fund to support a Great Northumberland initiative which would be aimed at boosting both culture and tourism.  My only concern really was to question if this in any way shape or form was designed to replace the Community Chest scheme and assurances were given that it wasn’t.  In fact this fund would seek out new projects to back. It was agreed unanimously.

The second item was about increasing the Regeneration Development Reserve and I had a few questions about this one. Again eminently sensible and again agreed unanimously.

I had to take several detours on my way home to look at various problems residents had contacted me about recently.  Once home I had a few emails to send out too!

Monthly surgery tonight and it took longer than the normal hour listed.  Again quite a few emails to do tomorrow!

Strategic planning today and with only 3 applications anyone would expect a quickish meeting, but this is planning!

First one was a new supermarket for Amble and my initial thoughts were with the existing small traders who have helped transform Amble over recent years.  Having said that and as I said at the meeting why shouldn’t Amble residents have 21st century shopping facilities on their doorstep, as long as we don’t lose sight of helping existing traders.  There had been a retail impact assessment done which didn’t raise any concerns. However once the contents of this report were considered it was obvious it was just a desktop exercise done by someone who had never even visited Amble.  So many inaccuracies it was unbelievable and I had to say that. The supermarket passed but we were able to ask for measures which are designed to help footfall down into the town and Marina from the supermarket site.

Next came an application which to say was convoluted wouldn’t do it justice.  Houses were being applied for on green belt land and the only way that could happen is if several exceptional circumstances overcome the green belt listing.  The officers told us only one exceptional circumstance was in place and this was what looked to me like a hotchpotch, designed especially to try and get around the green belt designation.  In fact, given the level of questioning by members of the committee it wasn’t just me who was uncomfortable. This was a 3year old application (?) and the 3 labour members who had sat when it first came up wanted it pushed through.  As the planning officer stated the rules had changed and so had their advice, which had gone from acceptance to outright refusal.

Normally we hear applications for houses and there are S106 developer contributions paid to the likes of education and health locally.  What was proposed here was that the land owners wrapped up the money they were getting in a S106 agreement but the only beneficiaries would be themselves, ie nothing for health or education etc.  I specifically asked the head planning officer about this because we usually have a run in about S106 agreements at every meeting. I said how many times have I questioned you about these agreements and you have always told me that there are strict rules and a mechanism in place to set these S106 monies, yet here we are a situation which flies in the face of your previous guidance.  What no one wanted to say was this was the only way the green belt protection might be alleviated by saying the S106 agreement was a special circumstance. Well if it was it was like none I have ever seen before!

A labour member proposed overturning planning guidance and accepting it but the legal officer then wanted him to list why he thought it overcame the several green belt protections.  He couldn’t and then was advised by a colleague to go for a deferral. The 3 labour members voted for that with the rest of us voting it down. We then voted to refuse the application in line with officers recommendations.   This whole S106 question looked to me like something artificially designed to simply get around the green belt issues and like other members I wasn’t happy about it, in exactly the same way we saw a quick redesign to our town boundary to accommodate 500 new houses in Bedlington!

The last application was for a new classroom block at a Blyth school and we passed that without almost any questioning.

I had to call in on a resident on the way home to give her the information I had for her so it was quite late when I got back.

Town Council meeting tonight and I hope there is a good turnout.  Lots of comments on social media because this council published their budget online for everyone to see, unlike most others!   Well not the turnout I hoped for but an interesting meeting nonetheless. A resident asked if it was proper that two of the sitting Labour councillors were right not to declare an interest before they pushed through a motion giving a neighbouring council, where they are members too, funding for one of their events.  Seems it was a matter for their own conscience. In the Mayor’s update they featured again because while this council had given funding to a play area which is actually outside their parish, the neighbouring parish where this play area is situated refused and the two members who had voted saying it was a worthwhile cause when at one council actually voted against it when it was discussed at the other council?  One has to wonder if they had some “Road to Damascus” experience or if indeed they were just following a political directive. Whatever, it seems the calls for closer working between these two parish councils is OK as long as the actual money flows one way! Thats 7 grand WBTC have just awarded projects in EBPC’s ward, it would be nice to see some reciprocity or council tax in West Bedlington will have to climb to the heady heights of other local parish councils!

 

Local Development Framework or Local Plan meeting today and low and behold this time I wasn’t the only South East member, the Lib Dem Leader Councillor Reid from Blyth attended too.  None of the Labour members turned up again so it was down to the two of us to represent the whole of the South East area, which I think we did pretty well! We went through the 20 odd pages of bullet points regarding the input from the last consultation exercise, diligently pulling out ones which we needed clarity on or wanted to ask questions about, so the meeting lasted all morning.  This has been a pretty Herculean task for the officers who have worked on these studies and consultations and given it has several completely new focuses the fact that they have produced such an in depth, articulate and sound plan was something we all thanked them for. My final question was something I wanted to know so everyone who took part in the consultations would know if their time and effort had been worthwhile.  I asked if the public responses, not any off self interest groups just plain old Mr and Mrs Joe Bloggs, had influenced this final draft in any way. I was assured they did even down to some publicly suggested wording has been considered and given weight in this new Northumberland Plan. Given that this will influence planning for some years ahead it wasn’t unexpected that developers had been very vocal in their submissions with many saying much of it was too restrictive for them.  It certainly isn’t the developers playground the last Core Strategy intended! This one has much more joined up thinking and reasoning behind it and embraces all sorts of things like sustainability, employment, infrastructure, affordability, health and education to name just a few. Whilst this is no panacea for all the woes in the county, at least it does draw together and start to bed down various other policies NCC have now got in place. The last Core Strategy took over 7 years to produce and basically gave developers carte blanche as far as house building went.  This one has taken a year and has already restricted new house builds over the course of its life by something like 8-9 thousand. In fact given the settlement boundaries and neighbourhood plans now in place most of our towns and villages have additional protection. Minor changes and details are now to be considered then we should have a plan ready to go to central government for their perusal quite soon.

 

Our LAC planning site visit today and we all met at the designated site in Cramlington.  As temporary chair of this planning committee it was down to me to set the ball rolling and I explained to the members of the public the rules and regulations we were under and the way this site visit had to operate.  That done I handed over to the planners and our highways officer for them to explain the specifics of the application. Once members had their questions answered, and I had quite a few, I suggested we walk around to the temporary entrance to the site to see first hand how that was being administered.  Our highways officer pointed out a few discrepancies to the applicant’s representative and they were rectified immediately.

 

After a cuppa and a chat with Russ and Bill in Cramlington, it was then time to get to another meeting with the CeO of Advance about our town centre redevelopment.  We are pushing this about as far as we can go without resorting to bad language and I think that message has got through. In fact it looks to me like we might have another meeting next week given our almost reticence to accept things at face value these days!  Several other possibilities were mentioned all aimed at augmenting footfall for the retail units planned there. Time will tell how ‘received’ they were!

Another dash back home then off to the dentist, this time not for me!

 

Firefighters Pension Board meeting today and this one is different to the normal LGPS because one is a board and the other a panel.  This one looks at all of the administration, legals, recommendations etc and take a view accordingly. The LGPS Panel make investment decisions because its a non funded scheme whereas the firefighters one is funded directly by employers and the firefighters themselves.

Again quite a bit of reading to get through and of course the recommendations off the ‘training’ day I attended at the Cramlington fire station.  It took over 3 hours to get through all of the papers and I really wish I had a dictionary of acronyms because not being involved on a day to day basis all these letter abbreviations are somewhat confusing and I have to stop and work them out as we go through.  We had a rep from the Yorkshire admin we use and she had quite a bit to go through too.

 

LAC meeting this time at Seaton Sluice.  This was only a LAC Planning meeting and I have been asked to step in as chair again until someone from another political group is appointed.   The meeting started with the Chair of the LAC, Christine, opening the meeting then passing the planning section onto me. We had been to a site visit on Monday morning so we all had first hand knowledge of the first application.   After the presentation by officers and hearing arguments for and against we were able to ask our own questions. I had to say I thought this was a missed opportunity for some elderly housing provision but as most other members stated given the facts of the application, as far as planning matters went, we didn’t have any material considerations to turn the application down to it was agreed.

The second application for a MUGA in a school at Cramlington was again passed unanimously.  I did ask if this would be open to the public but it was a special school and therefore this new muga will have to be fenced off for school use only.  I did mention the fact that I was dismayed to hear work had already started, hedges had been ripped out, even though we hadn’t as yet given any permission.

 

Well it’s been a week or two of ups and downs, pleasingly more ups than downs!

We saw the new play area in Plessey Woods Country Park open bang on time.  Not bad seeing as it was over 12 months ago when we sat down to plan this and targeted Good Friday 2019 as the opening date.  It looks to have been very well received. Now to get some good events on down there and drive up visitor numbers, as was my brief when we got the funding for the new park.

Lots of two way traffic with residents at the moment and most issues have been resolved, some even to the delight of residents!  Others will take more time because they need careful and considerate handling.

I have been working on a project to replace all the piecemeal  hedging at the front of the cemetery with cleaner metal fencing so it looks much better and cared for and at last I have the quotes needed to go after the rest of the funding.

Still waiting to hear what the new speed signs for Netherton Village and outside Hartford Farm are costing and that is frustrating to say the least as I have other calls on my smalls scheme funding.  Looks like the interactive signs will be fitted before I get the costs! This is not the best way to oversee a small finite budget! Never mind at least we seem to be getting somewhere after many months of trying to push these along.

Been working on a large scale project too and this at last is progressing well.  It’s taken well over 12 months to get this far and when it comes off, not if, I hope it will finally start to address one of the running sores we all feel in Bedlington!