Local jobs (From Darlington and Stockton Times)

Local jobs

11:51am Friday 10th July 2009

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Sir, – I am glad that Coun Allison admits (D&S, July 3) he is a novice to local government as patently he has got the wrong end of the stick with regard to the proposed Scotch Corner Business Park.

The planning committee is a quasi-judicial body and its members must decide each planning application on their own merits. There can be no “agenda to pursue” and no “executive to hold to account”, nor can any member be allowed to be a delegate of a parish council.

No party line approach can be taken, and pre-meetings to discuss planning applications are outlawed.

For the business park decision, some Conservatives and Independents supported approval and some Conservatives and Lib-Dems supported refusal.

Party badges were thus of no consequence. Substitution is allowed, and occasionally Coun John Blackie has taken my place and vice-versa when decisions on the business park have been made.

The decision not to participate rested entirely with Coun Tony Duff, rightly as he does have a close family connection to the developer.

Coun Allison also precluded the facts from getting in the way of his arguments. The principle of the business park was approved in 1996, and granted an outline permission in 2006.

Thus, preventing development was not an option, the key was to strike a balance between what the developer wanted and what the site could reasonably accommodate.

Rein the developer back too far, and the risk would have been to see the application decided on appeal in its favour by a planning inspector based in Bristol, and no control whatsoever over the conditions he or she would impose on the approval.

On the matter of the roundabout, the two key players, the Highways Agency and the highways authority, were both in agreement with the plans, and to refuse the application would have resulted in substantial costs to be paid by council taxpayers at an inevitably successful appeal.

And he overlooks the very important promise of quality employment in quality workspace on our doorstep. Surveys indicate around a third of our residents go beyond Richmondshire for their jobs, and there is a significant shortage of well-located, first-class office accommodation, as proposed at Scotch Corner, in the district.

Add all this up and your readers might arrive at the same conclusion I did at the planning committee.

Coun JILL McMULLON Middleton Tyas, Richmond.

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