Cllr. Gavin Ayling

M&S’s architects had some displays in the lobby of the Holmbush centre on Friday evening and during the day Saturday to get the thoughts of local people on their plans to extend the existing building and to improve the internal layout.

As I am on the planning committee, and because I received a written invitation, I took a trip along there and I must say the plans look very interesting. We must wait, now, and see how the application that is finally submitted responds to the public’s comments.

My thoughts focussed on accessibility for pedestrians but it appears M&S have some draconian ideas about how to free up parking spaces currently used by employees of M&S. I shall be attempting to help M&S employees not to be forced into parking in surrounding areas or, worse, into using public transport which is woeful in Shoreham.

Yesterday I missed the January planning meeting because of traffic on the A23 — a crash near Pyecombe which, according to Southern Counties Radio this morning, involved five cars. Hopefully everyone will be okay.

Apologies, then, to anyone who missed me or who might have relied upon my vote!

Surely this is an indication of the dire state of the transport infrastructure around Brighton. Sort it out please Government.

But the thing that has motivated me to post in this era of non-committed parties with illiberal policies where they should be liberal and liberal policies where they should be conservative, is this from the BBC: Tories plan ‘work for benefits’ .

As the person who sent me an email pointing out the story said “Finally, a Tory party we can be proud of?”

Bearing in mind that my comments here are before reading the full proposal, but it gave me goosebumps!

Update BBC’s Have Your Say is suffering from traffic. This could be for one of two reasons: People are angry and want to disagree; People are delighted and want to show their support for common sense at last.

You know what I think.

I visited a constituent tonight who is disappointed with the result of a planning application. No formal objections were submitted but now that the building is going up the scale and impact on the property are becoming clear.

A few months ago another application was made in a different part of Shoreham and I considered that the proposal would be detrimental from a particular aspect (being deliberately vague here, I hope you understand why). Once it was finished, it turned out to blend in nicely and to have virtually no impact.

Conversely, looking at the plans for the constituent’s neighbour you’d think that there is no impact and there really is….

As I said to the lady today, if having sat on eleven Planning Committees since my election last year, I cannot predict accurately the impact of an application, what hope have the general public got? Worse, if we cannot accurately predict the impact of an application (and if Officers reassure incorrectly too), who should the general public rely upon for clear advice on whether a Planning Application will effect them?

I am learning more and more that nothing’s as black and white as I’d like.

At this evening’s Council meeting we confirmed the make-up of the Committees for this year.

This year will likely be one of major change with the results of a consultant’s report into the sharing of services (and the associated costs) with the neighbouring Borough of Worthing. If that was to go ahead it seems almost inevitable that we will change to a cabinet and leader system in place of our, much-loved, committee system.

This evening’s agreement has not yet been updated on the Adur site (well, let’s give them a chance!) but when it is will appear here: Councillor’s by Committee.

I am pleased that I am now going to be a member of the Policy and Strategy Committee (PSC) and will now be Vice-Chair of Housing and Central Services (HCSC). I have been a member of HCSC since the election last May so it will be fascinating to see how the chairmanship works and I am genuinely excited about this.

I have not attended a Policy and Strategy Committee meeting before, so that will be entirely uncharted territory. I hope you will join me as I learn about this and report what I learn here.

Of course, if you live in Adur (or even if you don’t, actually) it would be really great if you could come along to a meeting and see your local democracy in action. It is always depressing to hear “I voted for the Tories because I don’t like John Prescott” or similar. If you come along, you can see what your voting for and, at the same time, understand why decisions are made (hopefully).

It has been suggested that a Scottish Prime Minister with no mandate from the English people should have no say in Housing policy. Unusually for me, I am going to come to his defence.

First, I know immigration is often blamed for the housing shortage, but do we really want to get to a point where Vodafone cannot employ people they need from abroad where the position cannot be filled domestically? Immigration cannot be blanket-stopped in a First World economy.

Also one should note that the first cause of the housing shortage — the one that makes most difference to house prices and the number needed — is the number of smaller households. Single people and older people are living alone more than was historically the case and the number of divorces is also having an impact.

Finally, the people deciding housing policy in England are currently the unelected Regional Assemblies. Quite honestly I would rather Her Majesty’s Government, with the mandate of all Britain (including a majority of English MPs), was the one to decide where we have the new homes we need than Regional Assemblies.

We have a stark choice between having a European-style system of home ownership where only the rich can afford to buy and the majority rent, a country full of high-rise soul-less buildings or one of a few fewer fields. I know that the answer is no single one of those, but compromise must be sought in my humble opinion.

On Monday Adur District Council’s Planning and Regulatory Committee is meeting over a mammoth agenda of no fewer than twelve applications.

The planning agendas and minutes can be found on the Adur website here: Adur Planning Committee Agendas and Minutes

In order to help me understand the impact of applications on neighbours and the neighbourhood I use the excellent Live Local to view each of the applications using an aerial view. I also save these views as a ‘collection’ for each meeting. I haven’t finished looking at all the sites yet, just those where interested parties have written or emailed, but the collection for Monday’s meeting can be found here: Local Live Planning Collection for 30 April 2007.

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