A LEADING barrister has been appointed to conduct an independent inquiry into the unauthorised destruction of planning records at Warrington Borough Council.
Eric Owen, of Kings Chambers, in Manchester will launch his investigation with a preliminary public hearing at the Town Hall on December 2, starting at 6pm.
The inquiry itself will start in January.
Mr Owen, who specialises in planning law among other things, is also an ordained minister in the Church of Wales.
The Local Government Ombudsman criticised the council in April when, in the course of investigating a complaint about a planning issue at Culcheth, it was learned that planning records which should have been retained by the council had been destroyed.
The remit of Mr Owen’s review includes:
(a) To examine the circumstances of the destruction of certain planning records in 2006.
(b)To identify the strengths and weaknesses in the council’s current policies regarding retention of planning records.
(c) To encourage interested parties with relevant information to present evidence to the investigator.
The remit of the investigation was set out by the council’s Audit and Corporate Governance Committee on the June 29.
Anyone with relevant information relating to these matters is being encouraged to attend the public hearing or submit written representations to Mr Eric Owen c/o Kings Chambers, Manchester by November 30.
Copies of relevant documents will be available to the public at the Contact Centre on Horsemarket Street from November 10.
An independent, external inquiry into the “maladministration” of planning records being destroyed was pledged by council leader Cllr Terry O’Neill shortly after he took over as leader of the council following the May elections.
He said at the time that the Ombudsman’s findings were a “serious blow” to the authority’s reputation.
An independent inquiry was “the only way in which public confidence can be restored in the planning process in Warrington,” he said.
Ever since it was revealed that planning records which the council had a statutory obligation to keep had, in fact, been destroyed the Labour and Liberal Democrat/Conservative coalition have sought to blame each other.
But Cllr Bob Barr, who was executive member for planning under the previous administration, and also called for an independent inquiry, has said he believes the council has nothing to hide.
The destruction of the records was an example of administrative incompetence by three senior officers who were no longer employed by the council, he said.
Cllr Barr claimed the affair had shown up a badly managed planning application and a lack of co-ordination between transport planners, development control officers and enforcement officers dating back at least to 1993.
Pictured: Cllr O’Neill (right) and Cllr Barr.
Top lawyer to probe plans controversy
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
6 Comments
About time, but I am surprised Bob Barr is still trying to focus on three former employees when people who took part in the destruction and who lied about the cited planning application and covered up for the destruction of the records when advising on that application are still employed by the council. I hope the inquiry’s remit will include the actions of these people as well, otherwise it will not achieve its objective of restoring confidence.
How confidence sapping must it be for council workers who are going to lose their jobs to know that “people who took part in the destruction and who lied about the cited planning application and covered up for the destruction of the records when advising on that application are still employed by the council.”
It would appear there is not the remotest chance of anyone in WBC organizing an inquiry which genuinely, truthfully and factually investigates all matters brought to light by the Ombudsman’s report. Despite the apparent enthusiasm of the rhetoric for proper resolution, there is a lack of political (with a small P) will to actually get to grips with all the issues. These extend well beyond the destruction of statutory records, serious as that is it is only the tip of the iceberg.
Apart from the inevitable white washing response of “calm down, we’ve learned our lesson, put our house in order, so from hereon in everything is OK”, one of the stated objectives of the recently announced inquiry, namely the restoration of the integrity of the Council is, as grey¬_man implied, a non starter before the inquiry gets under way, unless all issues are addressed.
Had the Ombudsman had not been called in, for what Bob Barr euphemistically describes as a “badly managed planning application and a lack of co-ordination between transport planners, development control officers and enforcement officers”, none of the “extraordinary and in excusable acts of maladministration” amounting to gross failures of cooperate governance would have come to light. What happened was nothing less than blatant deception.
The residents of Marton Close and others were repeatedly misled by the planners and others about their powers and duties. Repeated promises were made, only to be broken under one vague pretext or another. Several senior people within WBC (not just the three loosely identified in this WW article) knew or should have known (by virtue of their responsibilities) that statutory records had been destroyed. Despite which they acted, advised and behaved as though the nothing untoward had happened. This is not the hallmark of a responsible Council, and all the while this situation remains unresolved the integrity of the Council will remain justifiably tarnished.
I think it’s worth remembering the people of Marton Close in this because not only did they have to put up with this failure of the planning department, they were also subject to an apparent campaign of intimidation that led to the police writing to the council after 100 incidents had been reported in a close with three houses in it, stretching their resources in Culcheth. The planning department were aware of this and – I think we might assume – possibly colluding in it.
To add to paralegal’s argument, it appears that these residents were excluded from the very recent LGA review, which is remarkable not only because these people were directly affected but also because they are the only ones left with any substantive documentation of the whole thing. Because not only was the entire planning record destroyed, there are amazingly no references to the destruction in any meeting notes, memos, emails and other documentation. The council’s own investigation relied almost entirely on the supposed recollections of the very people who took part in it. In short, they asked turkeys to vote for Christmas.
I hope these people will play a full role in this inquiry because not only do they know more about what happened than anybody else, without their efforts to involve the ombudsman nobody would be any the wiser. I know Bob Barr has been trying to label anybody not happy with what has been going on with all of this ‘conspiracy theorists’ but there seems little doubt that the council is trying to manage this, if not exactly cover it up. Unfortunately there is already too much factual information in the public domain for them to do this. If they are sincere in their aim of restoring confidence, they won’t do it by applying a narrow remit to this inquiry. If they handle it in the same way they did their own inquiry and the LGA review, we can be assured they are protecting somebody or hiding something.
Paralegal is right. Shredded statutory documents are only part of the planning shambles at Marton Close. All matters flowing from the destruction must be investigated, or else it will be another cover up. This is not the first time the Ombudsman has been called to look into our poorly controlled planning practices but no one has dismissed or disciplined. So presumably the previous instances of planning misconduct were brushed under the Town Hall carpet? To sift out and put the damningly inconvenient bits of the Marton Close planning shambles under the same carpet will fool no one. At worst it would be an arrogant cover up for a dysfunctional department, long overdue a top down clear out and reorganization. At best it would be another “extraordinary and inexcusable act of maladministration”. Either way it will result in officers, managers and executives who knowingly lied to and deceived the public, remaining in positions of trust for which they are unsuited and incompetent. Anyone else, particularly in senior or executive positions, who knew the records had been destroyed, failed to address the significance and behaved as though no wrong doing had occurred is as culpable as the planners for the consequences of the collective deception.
Claiming events at Marton Close were a “badly managed planning application and a lack of co-ordination between transport planners, development control officers and enforcement officers”, is a masterpiece of understatement after all that actually happened there. Accusing people who question that explanation as “conspiracy theorists” is baseless and fails to recognize collusive behaviour by officers of the Council. The Ombudsman’s report (which the Council has unreservedly accepted) and several of the residents’ letters (on line) show planners and other officers engaging in a collective conspiracy to deceive when the residents and the pubic were lied to and misinformed about the development of 22 Twiss Green Lane. A situation made all the more conspiratorial when planners collaborated with the developer of that property as they misled and lied to the residents. There must be no “no-go areas” in this inquiry if it is to have any credibility everything must be fully investigated.
Well said Karl. Given that the people of Marton Close have already been excluded from the LGA Review which took place recently and that Bob Barr is already pointing the finger at ex-employees and downplaying what actually happened, the signs are already there that the whitewash is underway. Let’s hope we’re wrong and that because so much information is already in the public domain, that there can be no hiding place and certain people in the planning department are held accountable and possibly subject to police investigation. Only then will the planning department at WBC begin to recover its credibility.