MP and MSP back pensioner’s fight for justice
CONNEL resident Ann Colthart, her MP and MSP are all urging the Scottish Government to overturn Argyll and Bute Council’s decision to ‘ride roughshod over its own planning regulations’ when it allowed social housing, built too close to her home due to a planning blunder, to stand, writes Sandy Neil.
Following a a public hearing on November 3, councillors on the Planning, Protective Services and Licensing Committee voted five to four to mitigate the shortfall and privacy issues by frosting and fixing the ground floor windows at the rear, moving the top-floor windows to the gable end, and erecting a one-metre high wall and leylandii hedge.
Ann, 72, who is ‘determined to fight on’, has put her case to the Scottish Government’s chief planner, asking him to review the decision.
Argyll and Bute MSP Michael Russell said: ‘I think there has been a clear injustice perpetrated and the failure of the council to remedy this when it had the opportunity adds insult to injury, as did the conduct of the hearing at which three councillors were, at various times, asleep.
‘Ann has a very strong case for having the decision overturned and I will be contacting the minister and the chief planner myself to urge a review of what has happened.’
The area’s MP, Brendan O’Hara, said: ‘ The reality is, the mitigating changes that have been recommended by Argyll and Bute’s planning committee only compound the problem and nothing can take away from the fact that the council has ridden roughshod over its own planning regulations.
‘ There has been a catalogue of errors made by Argyll and Bute Council and it has to face that fact and even at this late stage do the right thing by Mrs Colthart.’
Ann has also instructed a QC to consider the legality of the process and the hearing.
She said: ‘ The planners made mistakes. They might have apologised, but that is not enough. The committee had the opportunity to put things right. I feel they just didn’t listen.’
She is also taking her concerns to the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, alongside other members of the public who attended the hearing. One neighbour told campaigners: ‘We elect – and pay for – our councillors to do a job. The majority are excellent but the behaviour of some of the councillors at the hearing on November 3 fell way short of what we are entitled to expect.’