Under proposals by the Conservative party, renewable energy projects could be judged as acceptable or unacceptable before local politicians have the project information before them.
According to Bob Neill – Shadow Planning Minister, the Conservatives would allow local politicians who have voiced premature opinions on planning applications the right to vote on the same applications.
The move – akin to allowing a jury member to voice a premature opinion before hearing all the evidence on a case, reverses historic moves by bodies such as the Nolan Committee to establish the basic principles of people serving the public. In the mid 1990’s the Nolan Committee was set up to review ministerial conduct further to claims of ’sleaze’ among Tory MPs. The Committee – later becoming The Commons Committee on Standards in Public Life – is the same committee now dealing with the MP’s expenses revelations.
The Nolan Committee’s First Report on Standards in Public Life recommended a code of conduct be introduced for local government officers and locally elected councillors. The Nolan committee established seven principles of public life – namely integrity, selflessness, honesty, accountability, openness, objectivity and leadership. These principles were to apply to all aspects of public life.
Shadow planning minister Bob Neill told the Royal Town Planning Institute conference last week: “We would scrap the pre-determination rule that at the moment means that if a member of a planning authority makes a comment on an application then they are then debarred from taking part in it. Most people outside our professional world think that is just potty.”
Councillors may well have a conflict of interest if they cannot view a planning application objectively and if this is the case it is unfair on whoever submitted the planning application if that councillor is allowed to take part in the decision as to whether it should go ahead.
If, for example you wanted to install solar panels on your listed building roof you would talk to the conservation officer at you local authority who may tell you that if you keep them to one half of the roof they will be acceptable. However your next door neighbour does not like the idea so tells his friend Councillor Robinson who, without seeing any of the plans openly speaks out against your solar energy project in the newspapers and is then allowed to vote on your application. Is this serving the public objectively or selflessly?
Neill also wants politicians to take the lead role in the planning process. Given that local politicians already decide local planning applications, it is not clear what additional powers he is contemplating…
