How Stockton Council is trying to manipulate its own planning committee

Yesterday evening, I was passed some papers evidencing how officers at Stockton Council are shamelessly attempting to influence the way elected councillors vote at next week's planning committee.

In June this year, Taylor Wimpey had an application to build 159 homes on Urlay Nook Road, Eaglescliffe overwhelmingly rejected by the council's planning committee, by some 9 votes to 2, contrary to the recommendation of council planning officers.

Predictably, Taylor Wimpey submitted an appeal against the decision (as reported in the Northern Echo here). In addition, Taylor Wimpey simultaneously submitted a near identical planning application for the same site, which is due to be determined by the planning committee next week.

The application is once again recommended for approval by council officers (you can find their report here). But officers couldn't leave it at that and run the risk of councillors again heeding residents' concerns and refusing the application for a second time; they decided to try and stack the deck in the developer's favour.

This week, council officers circulated to members of the planning committee a legal brief ostensibly relating to the appeal on Urlay Nook (which isn't due to be heard for some months yet). This document in essence states the council has no realistic prospect of winning the appeal and suggests the planning committee can "extricate the council from the very difficult situation it now faces" by approving the application at next week's committee meeting.

Not only that, the brief was circulated to members with a covering note saying that councillors are not allowed to discuss this matter with anybody outside of the planning committee and warned them (threatened them?) that to do so would be a breach of the Members Code of Conduct. Furthermore, members were told they are not even able to refer to the legal brief in next week's committee meeting; any discussion would need to take place in camera (i.e. in secret).

Well, so what?

The only possible explanation for this brief having been circulated to members prior to the planning committee meeting next week is that it is a deliberate and downright grubby attempt to unduly influence your elected representatives, to cajole them to approve the planning application contrary to common sense and the wishes of residents.

To my mind the public have an absolute right to know about such underhand manipulation of the planning committee, whatever hollow protests the council may come out with over the coming days. If I am subsequently found to have breached the code of conduct by putting this into the public domain then fine; a slap on the wrists is a price worth paying every single time to shine a little light on the way Stockton Council goes about its business.

The papers circulated to members of the planning committee can be found below. Share them with your friends, your neighbours, your family and help the truth to get out.

Ingleby Manor free school plus 350 new homes approved

It has today been announced the 750-place free school and 350 new homes can now be built after the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government granted planning permission after this was refused by Stockton Borough Council.

Eric Pickles MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

The announcement will prompt mixed feelings with residents - supporters will obviously be delighted; opponents to the housing distraught; and many will fear the effect of the new school on the current schools in the locality, particularly Conyers and Egglescliffe.

 

However, the announcement has been overshadowed by criticism of the government's centrist approach in driving forward new housing developments, no matter how unwanted or unneeded, (and which I blogged about just yesterday here), and the grubby way in which the announcement has been delayed for perceived political gain.

 

On three occasions, opponents to new housing schemes have requested the Secretary of State "call-in" the approvals granted by Stockton Council to review the decision.  On three occasions, the request has been refused, on the grounds the applications weren't sufficiently large to merit the government's intervention.

 

However, this particularly planning application was recovered, according to a letter dated 26th September 2013 from the Department for Communities and Local Government, "because it involves proposals for residential development of over 150 units".

 

Now bearing in mind the applications to develop the Morley Carr Farm, Green Lane, and Mount Leven Farm sites were each far in excess of 150 units in size, why weren't these called in?

 

The only rational conclusion is that the 'right' decision (as far as the Conservative party is concerned) was made in those cases and permission granted. The only application to build new housing in Stockton South (James Wharton's constituency) to be refused was Ingleby Manor, and this remains the only one to have seen the government step in and overrule a decision taken by locally elected and accountable councillors.

 

I spoke yesterday about how the residents of Yarm and Eaglescliffe had been betrayed by the Conservative party's approach to planning and craven, cynical desire to see hundreds of new homes built in more Conservative-leaning parts of Mr Wharton's marginal constituency; today we can add Ingleby Barwick to that list.

 

And who has been the cheerleader-in-chief of today's announcement? You guessed it, James Wharton MP.

 

As though this didn't smell enough already, it gets worse. The public inquiry in this matter closed on 28th June 2013, with the inspector, Paul Griffiths, indicating the decision would be made within 6 weeks. So we waited, and waited, and waited...

 

Lo and behold, and as I predicted at the time, the announcement was made today, some three months later, on the eve of the Conservative party conference!

 

That said, I suppose it's pleasing to see the Conservative party can still display some loyalty to its troops, as Mr Wharton receives his reward for bringing forward pro-EU Cameron's Referendum Bill...



Why I left the Conservatives part 1: The National Planning Policy Framework

In the first of a series of posts on some of the specific policies that pushed me to leave the Conservative party, I am going to focus on the one which has arguably caused more damage in Yarm and the surrounding area than any other - the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

Morley Carr Farm, the site of 300-350 new homes in Yarm

Since the introduction of the NPPF in 2012, Yarm alone has seen approvals granted to build up to 350 new homes at Morley Carr Farm, 370 homes along Green Lane and a further 350 homes plus a 100-bedroom care home at Mount Leven Farm. These are in addition to the Allens West site in neighbouring Eaglescliffe, where plans for 800 new homes have been approved.

None of the aforementioned sites in Yarm had been earmarked for development by Stockton Council in its current Core Strategy.  And whilst developers have either owned these sites or owned an option on them for decades, they had never been brought forward before the NPPF was implemented.

In the Conservative Manifesto 2010, it was stated, "We will create a presumption in favour of sustainable development in the planning system". Albeit a rare example of a manifesto pledge actually being honoured and delivered, the manifesto was silent on what else was to follow.

More detail was provided in the Coalition Agreement. It said, "We will... return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils." Excellent, we all thought.

It continued, "We will radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine the shape of the places in which their inhabitants lived." Marvellous, we cried. And about time too.

Unfortunately, and as was ever thus, the devil was in the detail of what was to follow.

Paragraph 49 of the National Planning Policy Framework has been the absolute killer. It reads, "Housing applications should be considered in the context of the presumption of sustainable development. Relevant policies for the supply of housing should not be considered up-to-date if the local planning authority cannot demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites."

In situations where parts of a planning authority's local plan is 'absent, silent or relevant policies are out-of date', the NPPF takes precedence. This was a situation a majority of councils, including Stockton Council, found themselves in over a year after the NPPF came into effect.

Suddenly, those council policies consulted on extensively with the public prior to approval which had protected the greenfield sites around Yarm for years, and which directed housing developments to the parts of the borough where they were both wanted and needed, were worthless, supplanted by the NPPF cuckoo in the nest. The presumption in favour of approving new housing developments became king.

If you clicked on the links attached to the three sites in Yarm I mentioned earlier, or if you have read other reports in the press I haven't included, you may have noticed one thing all the reports have in common - James Wharton MP criticising Labour-led Stockton Council for approving these planning applications.

Unfortunately, whilst he's quick to blame Labour for such planning travesties in and around Yarm after the event, his silence prior to those decisions has been deafening.

Mr Wharton failed to object to a single application, let alone speak up for residents at the relevant hearings; residents complain he failed to provide any meaningful support whatsoever to those opposing the schemes; he has consistently refused to utter a word of criticism of the NPPF which allowed these unwanted schemes to go ahead; and, despite the wholesale concern of residents, he didn't even bother to attend July's parliamentary committee debate on 'Localism in Planning' when a number of principled Conservative MPs queued up to represent their residents and, without exception, criticise the NPPF.

This is hardly surprising. For a young and ambitious MP who 'hardly ever rebels' against the party machine, and who has a slender majority of just 332, the NPPF and resulting approval of 1,000 new homes in a traditionally Conservative-voting ward within his marginal constituency could only have been regarded by Mr Wharton as manna from heaven.

That he, and the Conservative party through the NPPF, have not just let down but so badly betrayed residents in Yarm is unforgiveable.

But it isn't just Mr Wharton who is culpable.

When Morley Carr Farm was brought to the planning committee, then Green Lane, and the first time Mount Leven Farm was brought to the committee, not one single Conservative councillor (myself included) followed the national party's wishes and voted to approve these applications.

However, after the Mount Leven Farm application was initially rejected, the developer submitted a second, virtually identical, application was again brought before the committee just months after the first. Second time around, the application was approved with the committee voting 6-5 in favour.

'How did this happen' you might ask. The answer is simple - Councillor Ken Lupton (the chairman of the Stockton Conservatives Association, and leader of the Conservative group on Stockton Council) changed his mind, having voted against the application initially but voting for it the second time around.

Had the Conservative leader voted against the application, as he had previously, it would have been rejected. It is also noticeable that Councillor Lupton has been silent on what prompted his unexplained and devastating volte face.

It goes without saying that I could no longer remain a member of a party who nationally brought forward a policy so damaging to those I represent, and who locally can be described, at best, as duplicitous and opportunist.

I am proud to say that, as a member of the planning committee, I have listened to residents' concerns and not voted to approve a single inappropriate development in the area.

It is a crying shame that the leader of the local Conservatives cannot say the same thing.

Core Strategy consultation update

Two weeks in to Stockton Council's consultation on where up to 2,800 new homes could be built and a pretty clear picture is already taking shape.


Of the three sites being considered in Yarm and Kirklevington, the two to the south of Green Lane are both receiving the thumbs down from residents with roughly 44% of respondants either disagreeing or strongly disagreeing that they should be considered for new homes.  The picture is less clear with the third however (to the west of Yarm along the length of Allerton Balk); 43% of respondants agree / strongly agree that this site should be considered with 41% disagreeing / strongly disagreeing.


With the consultation due to run for a further 8 weeks there is still everything to play for.  I will shortly be announcing details of a drop in session for residents to come and see the plans, where I and other Conservative councillors will be on hand to answer questions.


In the meantime the proposals can be viewed clicking here, or can be obtained by e-mailing spatialplans@stockton.gov.uk.

Thousands of new homes in Yarm & Kirklevington?

Monday saw Stockton Borough Council start of a 10-week long consultation as to where to potentially build 2,800 new homes.  Three of the sites being considered lie within Yarm & Kirklevington.


Current projections suggest that whilst the existing and planned housing stock is sufficient to meet the borough's needs until 2021, an additional 2,800 new homes will need to be built to satisfy those needs up to 2028.  Sixteen sites throughout the borough have been identified of varying sizes that could be utilised for new homes.


Whilst the three sites on the outskirts of our communities are certainly large enough to accomodate housing, it's highly questionable whether we could cope with literally thousands of new residents.  The current difficulties driving through and parking in Yarm could increase exponentially;  the loss of acres of farmland and countryside could never be undone;  local children could increasingly miss out on places at local primary schools which are already bursting at the seams;  the shortage of recreational facilities would be ever more keenly felt; I could go on...


The consultation papers can be found here.  This is your opportunity to influence how our communities evolve for many years to come - make sure your voice is heard.