Council member resigns role in protest

A councillor has re signed from his planning role ‘in disgust’ at the system.

Hugh Coster, an Independent councillor for Aldwick East on Arun District Council, announced he would be stepping down from the council’s planning committee.

The planning system aims to give local authorities and, by extension, residents a say over which developments can go ahead in their area.

But Mr Coster said he felt the council was being used as a ‘rubber stamp’ for ‘misguided and damaging government policies’ which ‘disregard local people’.

Mr Coster said: “I’m standing down – more accurately, it could be said that I’m resigning in disgust.

“But that’s not because of any criticism of the chair or the committee or the officers. It’s because I consider we are being used as a rubber stamp; a rubber stamp for the government for misguided and damaging government policies, which really take no account of the effects on residents, and to me the residents come first.

“That’s who I was elected by. I represent them and yet I find here I can do little to protect them.”

Mr Coster said councillors would often hear from residents about controversial planning decisions and‘ get the blame’ for them.

“We can’t do anything about it,” he said, “And it’s really not good enough. But what can we do? We’re stuck with it.”

According to figures released in January, Arun missed its housebuilding target set by central government. Because the council delivered just 65 per cent of its target in the three years to March 2021, it now has less flexibility over decisions.