Uncomfortable about who’s sitting on panel

I attended, as a voting member, a planning development meeting on Wednesday, August 18.

There was an application being heard regarding a parcel of land belonging to RBWM.

During the panel members’ technical briefing it was pointed out by Cllr Baldwin that a number of conservative members attending (as substitutes for the regular panel members) were not constitutionally able to sit on the panel as they were from the Ascot area.

The constitution of the council requires the members of the Maidenhead panel to be of Maidenhead and surrounding area.

With the three ineligible Conservative members having been ejected we decided to proceed with the technical briefing with the remaining five panel members, as we need only three members to have a quorum to make binding decisions.

The briefing closed, the public entered for the full planning meeting and to our surprise four Maidenhead Conservative members appeared as if from nowhere.

Why?

Two of these members are designated panel members or substitutes so why weren’t they in attendance anyway?

One member isn’t a designated panel member or substitute member so why was this member in attendance?

Why were members who hadn’t attended the technical briefing and one assumes had little or no time to read the planning papers allowed to vote?

There was, to me, another issue as a couple of the members were also members of the cabinet and the application we were considering would be financially beneficial to the council and would therefore be enabling the wishes of cabinet.

Should members of the RBWM Cabinet be voting on applications that they have already agreed in principal?

Then, to our complete surprise, the planning application 20/03450 land south of 18- 20 and open space to south of Ray Mill Road East – Maidenhead submitted by CALA Homes one of the Borough’s development partners is suddenly withdrawn.

Why?

A resident remarked that the ‘goings on’ echoed the very controversial Vicus Way application.

I have requested that the Monitoring Officer look again at the constitution with regard to the public perception if cabinet members are able to vote on a development partner’s application.

Cllr GEOFF HILL The Borough First, Oldfield