Councils...

Proper double standards there

I used to live just off the Worplesdon road.

 

This is where your council tax goes......

 

Yep.

 

That's a typical reason for rejection of virtually anything being built in the Green Belt without any overriding considerations (such as being included in a Development Plan).

But if the council/Local Planning Authority (LPA) are conducting a review of where they need to site new housing (so much for what was promised for 'Localism') they need to ensure any sites put forward have a realistic chance of being developed, i.e. the landowners actually want them to be developed for housing.

The Development Control section/division of an LPA will advise their Forward Plans section/division of all refused applications for sites over a certain size for consideration when they are assessing housing land availability for inclusion in a Development Plan, and these will be considered in conjunction with new sites where developers have approached Forward Plans directly.

So that appears to be why the unsuccessful applicants for retrospective planning permission (best to apply before building!) have been contacted. Even if they applied for housing (or some other sort of needed development) on their land, had it included in the next Development Plan (Local Development Framework or whatever it's called these days) they still would have problems/be prevented from building the shed/garage they desire as it would then also be contrary to the DP/LDF.

 

This is what I would consider a council being a bar steward http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-weymouth-angling-society/

 

Examples of councils being bar stewards:

* When a council whines that council tax isn't enough, then lo and behold when the Icelandic bank crisis happened, that same council whined that it had lost several million quid. If they were struggling before, how had they managed to save several million off shore?

* When a council increases council tax, yet then cuts services.

* When a council receives significant payment on behalf of the people, in return for being inconvenience for a few weeks (such as when part of our sea front was closed while a film was being made), and then absolutely nothing gets done with the money, at least nothing that the public saw.

* When a council tells everyone of two new tourist attractions with leisure facilities in it in order to get through the public consultation, and then immediately changes the plans to mostly office units afterwards so that the general public don't see the benefits.

* When a council closes the "Boat house", which stands next to the Boating lake, that was used by the Boat club, in order to refit it and rent it out as a cafe.

These are just a few examples of the antics of our local council in recent years.

Or how about this. A different council this time. An area gets a £50 million quid grant from the EU for regeneration of one specific neighbourhood ( the one I lived in at the time as it happened). With the exception of a few houses having had their brickwork repointed, NONE of the planned projects ever happened. A year on, it made the local news that the money was gone and nobody could explain where it had gone.

 

A large chunk of mine goes to the private contractors who come along to throw our recycling all over the street without getting prosecuted for littering (even with video evidence)!!!!!

 

And that which does end up in the wagon will just get shipped half way round the world to be dumped at the feet of people who would love to be skint, because being skint means they understand the concept of skint and therefore the concept of NOT skint, who will then sort it by hand and fight over it just because a few sacks of one particular material might earn them enough to buy one basic meal for their family.

 

Round this way the recycling vehicle used to head off for 'some sort of private liaison' whilst the other operative would collect all the recyclables then get on his phone to the rubbish truck and he'd chuck it all in there to go into landfill and then hang around until the recycling vehicle came back some time later.