Cornwall Cabinet member rejects claims of hypocrisy

Tory councillors at County Hall cried foul last week over a decision by Cornwall Council to no longer write to people who have commented on planning applications to let them know if they will be heard by a committee.

Previously the council would write to every person who had commented – whether in support or objection – on planning applications submitted to the council if they were then taken to committee for a decision.

But it was revealed last week that the council has now stopped the practice and claimed it will save the council around £26,000 a year.

Tory councillors attacked the decision and claimed that it was making the council less transparent about the planning system.

However, Bob Egerton, Cabinet member for planning and a former champion for openness and transparency at County Hall, dismissed the claims this morning.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service he said: “Any human being can make a comment on a planning application and before you make any decision on an application you have to consider the representations made by people whether in support or objection.

“But it is not a referendum, you have to consider the views that people have raised but they do not determine the outcome of a planning application. It is not unusual to get dozens of objections but the decision is to approve the plans.

“Just 5% of planning applications go to planning committees and that can be because there are an overwhelming number of objections or the local member can request that an application goes to committee.

“If an application goes to committee in the past we would then notify every single person who had made a comment that it was going to committee but now we are not doing that.

“Overwhelmingly the people who are really interested in an application will know it is going to committee. We will continue to notify the local member and the parish council.

“We are not writing to everybody anymore – the majority of people who make comments don’t want to go to the planning committee itself anyway. Even if they go to the meeting they can’t influence the decision anyway.

“We really, genuinely don’t feel that any serious objector who is really concerned about an application is disadvantaged.

“Some of the people we have been notifying have been outside this country – they wouldn’t attend the committee meeting.”

However Cllr Egerton did concede that the way that the decision to stop sending out notifications may have been a mistake.

“I admit that we didn’t really discuss that with members, it was a management decision and it was then brought in,” he said. “It was only three months later that a member picked it up when someone mentioned that they had not been notified.

“All the planning committees are conducted in public, we advertise the agendas well in advance of the meetings and all the officers’ reports are published.

“People might disagree with the decision but there is no attempt to exclude anybody. To be frank even if you do write to people they don’t come anyway.

“With the benefit of hindsight I should have taken it to our informal planning group which is attended by all the committee chairs and vice chairs and we will now take it to that group.

“If overwhelmingly the chairs and vice chairs of planning say they don’t like it then we will rethink it.

“But someone will have to persuade us that there is a significant problem with it. But without that I don’t see the need for a knee jerk reaction. To be frank we can’t afford to spend money on something like this.”

Asked whether the council could have instead emailed notifications to those people who submit comments online Cllr Egerton said that was considered but then discounted as it would then be seen as excluding those who do not have access to email.

Cllr Egerton said that it would be down to councillors to keep local people informed about planning matters.

He added: “The local member should be saying I must make sure that I tell people that a planning application is going to committee. I think local members have a responsibility to communicate with their residents.

“I know that in my division I will always make sure that those people who come to me about planning applications, the parish council and anyone else who should know about it does.”

Conservative group leader Linda Taylor said: “They are saying that they are keeping the public in the dark about contentious planning applications that they have expressed an interest in for cost saving measures.

“A figure of £26,000 for postage was quoted.

“But as usual it’s one rule for them and one for the people they are supposed to be representing. When Conservatives on Cornwall Council called for the council to go paperless last year, we were told the default position had to remain that paper agendas were sent out, at a cost to the taxpayer that the council was unable to calculate, although annual printing costs alone were in the thousands.

“This is rank hypocrisy from the administration yet again. We ask, what is the real reason for this change? It just seems to be another case of the powers that be that run the council seeking to further divorce themselves from the reality of the situation, which is that we are supposed to be there to serve the people of Cornwall in an open and transparent manner.”