A SENIOR Labour councillor at Warrington has hit back at comments made by MP Helen Jones over planning issues in the borough
Cllr David Keane (pictured), executive member for environment and public protection, said:
“It is regrettable that the MP didn’t contact us to gather the facts prior to making her statements.”
Ms Jones, MP for Warrington North, called for an outside expert to be brought in to review the borough’s planning department which she claimed was “a shambles.”
She claimed people had lost faith in the department’s credibility and said an expert should be brought in to look at its operation and recommend improvements.
Last year, the Local Government Ombudsman criticised the authority over planning issues – including the unauthorised destruction of planning records.
Cllr Keane said: “We accepted the original Ombudsman report of April 2011 and quickly took a series of actions in the summer of 2011 which included the actions that Helen Jones is now suggesting.
“All the actions we have taken have significantly contributed to the development and implementation of a positive and robust action plan for this service.
“We immediately called for an independent investigation into matters highlighted by the Ombudsman report, the findings of which have been reported to full council after being considered at length by the all party audit and governance committee. The recommendations of this report have now been fully implemented.
“Another major decision was to request an independent expert review of the planning department. We requested that the Planning Advisory Service, a free service, would visit the council for an in-depth review. This happened late last year and their findings were published early this year.
“These reports formed the basis of our planning service improvement plan which was considered, in public, by the council’s environment and housing vverview and scrutiny committee in June of this year.
“This cross-party committee unanimously endorsed the improvement plan. A particular focus of the improvement plan is to strengthen the council’s planning enforcement function and there has been, following consultation, a re-organisation of the department in order to meet this objective.
“Looking forward, a cross-party improvement board has been created in order to monitor the delivery of the suggested improvements and ensure the best service possible in very difficult financial times.
“It is regrettable that the MP didn’t contact us to gather the facts prior to making her statements. The Planning Department is now on a journey of continuous improvement and we welcome the positive involvement of all representatives in the town in this regard.”
Councillor slams MP in plans row
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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.
10 Comments
The council planning department & legal services fought not to accept the LGO findings, and very nearly got their way, but those residents who lodged the complaint stated if the LGO report was not accepted they would take a judicial review. The council did not immediately ask for an indepedent enquiry, public pressure and those residents who made the LGO complaint lobbied for a independent enquiry. Helen Jones singles out enforcement as a problem, this is correct.l
“She claimed people had lost faith in the department’s credibility”, this is absolutely correct and the senior member’s whitewashing attempt will not change anything.
I don’t know whether councillors are wilfully missing the point here or can’t grasp it. There were systems, procedures and policies in place that should have presented the recent failures in the planning department but they didn’t work because individuals ignored them. So introducing new systems, procedures and policies won’t make a difference. They didn’t fail. The people did. And those same people are still working there.
Although some are not, apparently!
Quote: “The Planning Department is now on a journey of continuous improvement and we welcome the positive involvement of all representatives in the town in this regard.”
A journey of Continuous improvements……if the Council Road planning is anything to go by the journey will be a long and very slow winding road, and you may not even get there……….!!!
“It is regrettable that the MP didn’t contact us to gather the facts prior to making her statements.”
It’s about as regrettable as a planning department publicly denying a small private green belt application and wheeling out a phrase “the green belt comes first” then whallopping through a large developers application on green belt land stating the need for additional housing…!!!
It’s regrettable that an MP rightly calls the department a shambles, and a senior councillor appears completely oblivious to it all, and attempts to con the warrington public……….
The Town is in a terrible terrible state mainly due to the shambolic way the Councillors AND paid employees perform. If it was a private business it would be have gone to the wall years ago.
Shame on you all……..
Whether the Council likes or not it is inescapable that officers seem to be able to act without ever being held to account regardless of the systems, procedures or policies in place. It is a FACT officers ignored legal advice, misled and lied to cover up their deficiencies on very serious matters for five years but have not been disciplined. All of this is in the public domain. Furthermore, a collective (if not corporate) decision appears to have been taken to cover up the wrong doing for five years and plough on as if all was well, even though some of their actions were unlawful, leaving aside others that showed an absence of integrity. Alternatively, if no collective decision was taken, some very serious questions on the responsibilities, fitness for purpose and actions of very senior well paid officers, during the five year period need to be thoroughly investigated. But here the Council has done nothing, save to say not to worry – everything is OK – lessons have been learned and new procedures are in place. Nor do they apparently feel inclined to do so. Were this to happen in any other responsible organization there would be a thorough in-depth investigation, those responsible would be held to account and possibly dismissed. Why is it no surprise this is not happening here?
Indeed Reflex, I also heard that certain head of planning was shown the door a month or so ago
Who was that then as I’ve completely lost track of who is who and at what level when it comes to planning these days. I for one am intrigued.
Just remember the electorate , and their concerns, are at the bottom of the pile ;-(
Another example of our Councillors being completely out of touch with reality. The facts speak for themselves and no whitewashing exercise by Councillors will make any difference since Officers continue to totally ignore systems and policies because they are very aware that no action will be taken against the, The private sector must be laughing at WBC. If WBC had been in the private sector it would have gone to the wall many years ago!