Out of control Council circumvents normal planning procedures, makes mockery of local democracy
16/11/09The new unitary Cornwall Council has decided that elected local members will not be allowed to review the Council’s own planning applications for a hugely controversial development on Battery Rocks beach in Penzance.
Officers at Cornwall Council have ignored the views of the chair and vice-chair of the West Area Planning Committee and for the first time have chosen to send planning applications directly to the Strategic Planning Committee. Previously applications were referred to Strategic from an Area Planning Committee. Members local to the Penzance area make up half the 12 members on the West Area Planning Committee but only two members from the Penzance area are on the 21 member Strategic Planning Committee.
The issues to do with a listed building and the sea wall are by no means strategic. They are to do with local arrangements for the Isles of Scilly Link, not with whether there should be such a project. The choice of how the local facilities in Penzance Harbour should be improved is a decision that should be taken locally.
The effect of the move is to disenfranchise the Council members representing those most directly affected by the scheme, and sidestep massive public opposition to the plans.
This is just the most recent in a series of initiatives by Cornwall Council to circumvent normal planning procedures and controls and to remove elected local representatives and their constituents from the decision making process. First the consultation process ignored the clearly stated wishes of local people, then the Council decided that it didn’t need to apply for planning permission for most of the works, and now it has decided that the planning consents that are required will not be scrutinised by local members. On top of this the Council says that the final decision about whether to build on Battery Rocks beach or go for alternatives will be taken by the Cabinet of the Council, where Penzance, one of the largest towns in the County, and its surrounding area has no representation!
The decision comes just days after Penzance residents were presented with the findings of the Penzance Harbour South Pier “Historic Building Analysis”, and told that the pier is one of the most important historic structures in Cornwall and that the parts of the pier that will be permanently buried by the development are the most sensitive historically. The author of the report, Nick Cahill, recommends that the pier’s listing be upgraded to “at least Grade II*”, placing the pier amongst the top 8% of all historic structures in the UK.
FoPzH News Release on this issue : download pdf | view pdf