BIG PICTURE
PLAN DELAY IS A DISGRACE
CHESHIRE East said last year that the Local Plan would be delayed by six months because the inspector was unhappy with virtually every aspect of it
We are now being told that the delay will be at least TWO YEARS in total. It won’t now be adopted until the end of 2016, if then.
Cheshire East keep saying the Local Plan is just around the corner but when we reach that corner, there is another corner ahead.
Cheshire East Council have totally let down the good people of Cheshire East. There is no Local Plan and won’t be for at least another year.
It has taken seven years and cost over £4 million but there is still not an adopted Local Plan. Incredible.
There is no five-year supply of housing land, despite being told since 2014 that it was in place. Totally incomprehensible.
The ruling Conservative Group on Cheshire East has proven to be totally incapable of sorting out the planning crisis that is entirely of their own creation. The consequence is that appeal after appeal is lost and our precious green gaps/belt is concreted over.
It is time that the Government stepped in to sort out this planning ‘free for all’ that the council has allowed. If they don’t, more and more of our countryside will be obliterated. Brian Silvester UKIP councillor THIS month’s column is being assembled during our conference in Bournemouth, where, during her opening address, Party President. Baroness Brinton paid tribute to local party member the late Dr Barry Furr OBE, a passionate Liberal Democrat and expert campaigns organiser, who, in his professional life as Chief Scientist at AstraZeneca, gained international renown for his contribution to the quest for cancer cures.
As I write, I am one of many delegates hoping to speak to an Emergency Motion condemning the Government’s assault on the BBC.
Throughout the BBC’s lifetime, governments of all parties have maintained a respectful distance from the BBC’s governance and, when reviews have been necessary, have been scrupulous in maintaining a nonpartisan approach.
Now, a political party that over 63 per cent of voters did not support, claims a mandate for breaking with this long-standing tradition; an insidious development which all Conservatives should be thoroughly ashamed of.
Sadly Cheshire East is not immune from Tory undermining of the democratic process. Not content with the totally disproportionate majority they enjoy through our preposterous electoral system, local Conservatives have taken a leaf from President Putin’s book on the stifling of opposition views.
I can testify from my time on the old borough council some years ago that the right of councillors to table a ‘notice of motion’ is one of the best ways for opposition members to air a new idea, or a deeply-felt concern of constituents and to hold the council to account.
Following the debate, Conservatives would typically go through the ritual of loyally voting the motion down, even on those occasions when some would approach you during the coffee break to admit privately that they agreed with you.
Despite falling foul of these political games, opposition councillors able to express a good point effectively would often find a version of their better ideas and arguments quietly taken up later.
Now the Conservatives have decided that future council ‘notices of motion’ will not be debated in public, but considered behind closed doors in the all-Conservative Cabinet. This is not only arrogant and petty, it is profoundly undemocratic and an insult to you as voters.