PROBLEMS AVERTED IF COUNCIL HAD ACTED

I THANK director of planning and development of COGG Peter Bettess for his reply (GA 14/8) regarding my “bullying-by-regulation” letter.

Planning must indeed be a complicated matter because council just does not seem to be able to get anything right.

The property causing the problems for my friend who spent $50k at VCAT, he says, has virtually no legal drainage, much of which is not even connected, but this allegedly illegal work was still signed off and approved, by all the regular authorities.

Mr Bettess cites various planning and regulatory acts, but the Act that never entered the picture — according to my friend — was the all-important Water Act.

This is a bizarre story with so many complexities, but even more galling is the fact that my $50k friend had to seek redress at VCAT, for the entirety of Mr Bettess’s tenure at planning, when it may have been available via the right action from council.

Furthermore, my $50k friend claims he has a document with the COGG CEO’s signature, from a panel on which the CEO sat, exonerating council from any blame.

If this is, indeed, the case, then serious conflict of interest matters arise.

Council seems, at least to me, to be the ultimate responsible party. If everything was actually done correctly, no issues, such as my friend’s, would ever arise.