As I said in my last blog, I recently took issue with the planning officer over the lack of consultation on a 15 metre wind turbine which is going up on a ridge 800 metres from the back of our house. He claimed he had consulted various bodies including Westleton Parish Council which had no objections. I pointed out that: it might be in the Westleton area, but it couldn’t be seen from the village; it was much nearer to our village and would dominate the skyline like some monstrous alien. (However, for the time being, until the turbine is attached, it looks more like the Skylon.)
“Why wasn’t our parish consulted?”
“Perhaps they should have been, but we did consult English Nature.”
But the turbine is on farmland way outside the AONB.”
“Well, a notice was put up on the highway.”
“Have you ever been along Fen Street – it’s a mile long single-track lane leading from nowhere to nowhere. The only people who ever go along it are those visiting one of the five houses there – and they probably drive. They’re not going to see a tiny notice on a post set back from the road.”
The conversation reminded me forcibly of the wonderful passage in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when the planning officer is arguing with Arthur Dent, who is lying in front of a bulldozer trying to prevent his home being flattened.
"But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."
"But the plans were on display...."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'…… Ever thought of going into advertising?”
Planning has become more and more process driven. Provided you can tick all the boxes – fine. It matters not what the outcome is or if the decision defies common sense. Provided you follow the right process, that’s all right.
Given the part that consultation should play in planning, it is surprising how little effort some authorities make to engage the community when development proposals emerge.
Whilst the best write to everyone affected, the worst do virtually nothing. Some seem to be keen almost to conceal controversial proposals – all they want is a quiet life. The last thing they need is some meddlesome resident getting hot under the collar about some scheme they could otherwise deal with the minimum of fuss under delegated powers. They don’t need the involvement of an enraged busybody threatening their average decision times.
So what do they do? Put an advert in the paper or put up a notice. An advert in the paper might be all right if it were a real advert rather than a public notice. What kind of sad person reads the public notices? They may fulfil a statutory requirement, but they are hardly in the spirit of the legislation.
Whilst a prominent poster can attract attention, the sort of thing we see is a bland A4 note that usually gives little information about the project but says that the plan can be inspected at some inconvenient time in some inconvenient place.
I cannot help thinking that planning should be more inclusive. I have long advocated that planners should do more to sample opinion in the plan-making consultation. They should also do more when they receive potentially controversial applications – and actively seek the views of those affected, even if it means knocking on doors or sending letters with annotated plans which describe the proposal in some detail.
