Listening brief key in council planning

IN a column last week, council leader Alyson Barnes called for a friendlier environment for political discussion in 2019.

At a time when politicians in Westminster are being heckled, spat at and abused just for airing opinions, ensuring local politics is friendly while robust – in other words, built on respect for differing opinions – is essential.

Crucially, the council needs to be seen to be listening, if that makes sense. And on no issue is that more obvious than the Spinning Point development.

This column has regularly criticised the way campaigners who opposed the council have been treated, with their views often not given the public consideration they deserve.

We all want Rawtenstall to thrive, after all.

The change in direction of what is going into the new shopping centre part of the project is a case in point. The hotel plan has been dropped in favour of flats – a good thing, in this column’s view.

But doing so without consulting with residents again is only going to antagonise those who feel the council doesn’t listen.

On such an important scheme, even minor changes should be given the chance to be debated and aired in public.

Even more so when so many of the councillors who should have been present to vote for or against the final scheme were absent from the pre-Christmas meeting, held in private, at which it was on the agenda. Friendlier politics can only be a good thing, but it’ll only happen if people feel they are being listened to.

A solution to this would be to refer the whole phase two project to the scrutiny committee to debate what’s happening and collect evidence – given work on the phase one bus station has barely begun, they surely have time to do that.