Last night’s planning (‘Development Control’) meeting was typically busy (in the gallery) and today I received five letters from members of the public on another planning application. Normally I will receive an average of one per week on any other topic, but today I received five week’s worth of normal post on one planning application. The application can be found here Adur Council planning reference: ADC/0023/09.

The separate documents, if you struggle with the above site, are here (These links will likely go out of date so do use the above link if you want the current information):

• Document 1
• Document 2
• Document 3
• Document 4
• Document 5
• Document 6
• Document 7

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When I was first elected to the Council I was told that I should not discuss a planning application before a meeting. And at the time I thought that was a little draconian. But as time has passed, I have seen why. Despite thorough research, reading the application, viewing the drawings and visiting the site there is always something said at a meeting in the committee that affects your opinion. I never cease to be amazed that my opinion on an application can be so swiftly affected by what people say at these meetings.

If a debate is held outside of the meeting then a decision may be made for perfectly good reasons but the lack of public conversation of the matter would be anti-democratic and frustrating for the general public. It is for this reason, and not because of the law, that I will not discuss this application or give any hint to my (initial) opinion on it.

But wouldn’t it be great if the public were motivated to care about more that the Council does? I think there are a few reasons why they are not:

1. Central government in England (the UK Parliament) tells us mostly what we can and cannot do and so there is little to get animated about — whatever we do is because it is the only thing allowed within the London framework we are given.
2. People don’t like some of what we do but because of (1) see no point in telling us.
3. They don’t understand the democratic process and doubt that we will change our minds.

This last one is the most poisonous. Cllr. Searle and I attended a public meeting about a proposed development last year and it resulted in the land that was proposed to be developed being given village green status (Adur Press Release) — the arguments were cogent. But if you were at the meeting you would think we had already made a decision — the public were angry, aggressive (in a few cases) and dismissive.

Cynicism has destroyed civic spirit and I don’t know how to resolve that.