THE SORRY STATE OF EALING PLANNING DEPARTMENT
The Ealing Planning Department is, to my mind, in serious disarray. How many of you have experienced, directly or indirectly, evidence of its failures and shortcomings? I attended a meeting on 19 October '16. It considered two applications (items 02 and 03 on the agenda) in respect of a building that has been a neighbourhood problem for years now and still known by its former name as the Royal Crimea Guest House. As you know, the public must be given access to all documents relating to planning applications. In the case of these applications not only was the public not fully briefed, neither was the Council's own Planning Committee! I was amazed that the meeting went ahead and considered these applications despite these serious shortcomings and even more surprised that the minutes of the meeting make no mention of them. Please read through what follows and ask yourselves if Ealing Planning is giving us a responsible and honest service.What occurred was yet another disgrace for the Planning Department. The Chairman of the Planning Committee conducted the meeting impartially in firm but friendly fashion, but went out of his way to rebuke Planning and that rebuke should have been recorded in the minutes. I remember very clearly the Chairman saying that this had 'not been Planning's finest hour' : Planning had failed to provide briefing papers to members of the committee on time. One of the Planning Officers made a mistake in his presentation of item 02 which the chairman had to correct. The minutes correctly record the Chair querying why 25 documents were added to one of the applications at the last minute, but omit the Chairman's imputation that Planning had been slovenly and too last minute in its presentation which had therefore given insufficient time for members to reflect on the issues before them.Even worse was the announcement that one of the applications had been altered, a quick-fix, arranged, it would seem, on the morning of the site-visit a few days before, that denied the public any chance to voice an opinion. A committee member asked about the legality of accepting this last-minute change to the application. He was inadequately answered by a legal officer not introduced by name at the meeting and not named in the minutes. This was something which should have been voted on but was not. None of this is reflected in the minutes.It is odd that the minutes give the names of councillors and of Mr W.Taylor who addressed the committee on behalf of residents but not the name of all of the planning officers involved! It is not surprising when Planning is given the protection of anonymity that it fails to do its job to acceptable standards. The minutes, in effect, sanitise Planning when they should have recorded its shortcomings as a matter of public record and to act as a reminder to Planning to improve its performance. It appears to have deteriorated over the last six or more months which is extraordinary given what it was already like.Let's see if the Committee approve the minutes of this meeting (October 19, 2016) at its next meeting on November 16 as a true and accurate record of what occurred.
vincent paul WRIGLEY ● 3594d12 Comments ● 3107d