Croydon Conservatives have today sent this open letter to Oliver Lewis, Cabinet member for Planning and Chris Clark, Chair of the Planning committee.
Oliver, Chris,
The Conservative group and residents are concerned about a lack of transparency around the way planning decisions are currently being made.
The next planning committee will mark the first meeting in ten weeks. Despite the lack of recent meetings, only one item was discussed at last Thursday’s subcommittee, the first such meeting in eight weeks.
Public confidence in Croydon Council has collapsed. The council’s bankruptcy and the fiasco of Brick by Brick both resulted from a culture of secrecy and a lack of transparency around decision making.
Because of the decision to cancel recent meetings of the planning committee, we worry that forthcoming meetings will be overloaded with items for decision. Understandably, residents will fear that agendas are deliberately being crowded to squeeze out time for robust debate.
Earlier this year, there were several occasions where committee ran late into the night. Residents were forced to wait for five hours to hear the item of interest to them. Councillors have, in the past, even been discouraged from asking questions due to the lateness of the hour.
This simply isn’t fair on residents. Items discussed late at night do not receive the same level of scrutiny and debate. On occasions residents have waited for six hours only to find their item pulled at the last minute.
A meeting of the planning committee should not exceed three hours or try and discuss more than four items. From now on, Conservative members of the committee will vote against suspending the guillotine. We are committed to discouraging items being nodded through without due scrutiny.
But we will support a larger number of shorter meetings. Planning committee tends to meet every other Thursday. There is no reason that it can’t meet every week.
To the great frustration of residents, other mistakes are being made. A residents’ association correctly referred an application to committee only to find it was decided by officers as delegated business. This is a breach of the council’s often-neglected constitution. There are also significant fears that, due to a lack of committee meetings, the council will be vulnerable to action from developers, who can now appeal to inspectors as a result of non-determination.
Fears around a lack of transparency extend to the way Labour is forming planning policy. The council has not stuck to the Croydon Local Plan published timetable. The report has yet to come to cabinet. No revised timetable has been published. Residents worry that these severe delays – without explanation – are an attempt to squeeze-out time for consultation.
With both these issues, we recognise that there are always practical realities, competing priorities and a range of pressures. But trust in the council has evaporated as a direct result of Labour’s policies and inability to deliver. Now more than ever, the council’s political leadership should be doing everything in its power to encourage transparency and visibility of decision making.
Please respond to us confirming:
- Why planning committee has not met for so long
- That there will be no attempt to overload forthcoming meetings and that a maximum of four items will be on the agenda
- That no other applications which were referred to committee have been made under delegated business
- Whether the council is in danger of action from developers over non-determination. If so, what are the financial implications of this risk?
- Why the published timetable for the Croydon Local Plan review has not been kept to
- The new timeline for the plan
Regards
Gareth
Cllr Gareth Streeter
Shadow Cabinet member for Planning, Regeneration and Culture
