Anger at ‘behind closed doors’ council decisions
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UNREST is growing among Manchester’s Labour councillors over accountability and democracy during the pandemic, particularly over planning.
On Thursday the chief executive took her third set of planning decisions in a row behind closed doors, despite other authorities across the country holding public committee meetings throughout lockdown.
The latest permissions, including an updated application relating to a longdisputed tower block on Shudehill, were green-lit by Joanne Roney under powers delegated to her by councillors during the pandemic.
That was despite the Labour group’s secretary, Pat Karney, emailing members last Monday to promise ‘all current planning applications will go to the full committee,’ a decision that was to be implemented ‘immediately’ by committee chair, Coun Basil Curley.
Four days later three more applications were decided in private under delegated powers. As complaints grew among councillors, the town hall promised to hold a normal planning committee meeting this month.
Suspicion that
Manchester’s leadership spotted an opportunity early on to rush through controversial decisions has grown on the backbenches.
In April, the chief executive passed two applications that had been recently thrown out by committee. One of them, part of De Trafford’s ‘Gallery Gardens’ in Castlefield, had been rejected a month earlier.
The second, for student flats at the Church Inn site in Hulme, had been knocked back in February.
The campaign group Greater Manchester Housing Action said ‘we do not believe that suspending the committee is a just or democratic way for planning decisions to be handled.’
The council said at the time that it was considering holding virtual meetings. However, a further set of applications were decided by the same method in May, followed by the latest set last Thursday.
Those included an update to Salboy’s application for a tower block on Shudehill, the original version of which finally went through last year after repeated objections from ward councillors and, initially, from the committee. Piccadilly councillor Sam Wheeler, who has repeatedly objected to the Salboy development, emailed colleagues to say he was ‘deeply disappointed that some decisions were taken yesterday that could have easily come to the committee to be decided by elected members in a few weeks.’ Coun Karney replied: “The minutes will show that the chair’s recommendations were completely ignored. I see this as an affront to the Labour group.”
Planning decisions were delegated to the chief executive, in consultation with the head of planning and the chair and deputy chair of the planning committee, under an emergency motion passed unanimously by the council in March.
One councillor called the latest round of closed-door approvals ‘outrageous,’ while another said: “Other councils either slowed down the planning process in consultation with developers, or they’ve just gone for virtual meetings, including London councils which have even more controversial planning applications than us. So it’s not impossible.”
Such concerns go beyond planning applications. An emergency budget meeting that had been mooted for this month – due to the huge financial shortfall now facing the city – will no longer take place, leader Sir Richard Leese said last week, prompting some to question what savings would now be drawn up without public scrutiny.
“There’s a bigger principle of democracy here,” said one backbencher. We didn’t give these powers for someone to do a power grab. It appears to the public that there’s no democracy or transparency in what we’re doing.”
A council spokesman said a number of obstacles had prevented it from holding planning meetings in public since March, including difficulties setting up secure technology, the ability to facilitate public participation online and concerns about safety if the meetings were held in person. Meetings would return from this month, however, the town hall confirmed late last week.
Ms Roney said: “Throughout lockdown we have been working to reconvene a full planning committee, albeit virtual at this time, and reinstall the usual decision making process with oversight from members – and I’m pleased to say this will happen in July.”