Council tells Bagby to rip up runway

[Gertrude the Wombat]

People with the skills to discharge such a role with any kind of competency are off earning good money elsewhere.

Eh??? So are plenty of councillors, like me. Being a councillor is something that many people manage to do in their spare time from a full-time job.

[L'aviateur]

Gertrude the Wombat, you've been around the forum long enough to realise there are a lot of armchair views, but actually standing up and doing something to make a change whether its being a local councillor or being on the schools governers for your children is where you can make the difference with your views!

[Shunter]

Being a councillor is something that many people manage to do in their spare time from a full-time job.

Good for you. However unfortunately I doubt you're on Bagby's local council. I used to live up that way and they truly are a shower of shít. They are incapable of identifying with anyone who has interests which are outside their wax jacket and home-made-jam borg collective field of social vision; exactly the kind of closed-minded people who should be specifically prohibited from such positions.

[Keef]

I know several of our local councillors. The are eminently sensible folk (I worked with some of them before I retired from paid employ). However, they are seriously limited in what they can do. Guvmint reserves a lot of the authority to itself - or so it appears.

We want to build a new Church in a rural location to replace one that is based round a WW1 army hut that is now falling apart. Since the new one is greater in cubic capacity than the old one, and is on green belt land, the council is pretty much compelled to refuse permission, even though all councillors are in favour. Then we appeal, and expect to get consent on appeal.

An "interesting" process! The councillors clearly aren't trusted by Guvmint to make decisions.

Mind you, having seen some of the wacky decisions (refer above) made by councillors elsewhere, I can see why that is. Maybe the whole process needs overhaul. I'm too busy right now to give it the attention it deserves, so is anyone else up to sorting it with the Civil Service?

[Lister Noble]

What about your boss?

Sorry

[flybymike]

I'm too busy right now to give it the attention it deserves, so is anyone else up to sorting it with the Civil Service?

Keef will be back....

[IO540]

I strongly suspect that the real muppet councillors are in the "countryside" councils. I live under one of these and have met the people concerned, and most of them are either crooks or idiots.

One councillor (a Cons one) was phoning up locals in the village, the evening before the committee hearing, asking them to come along and object. Had this call got taped, he would have been in big trouble. Yet this seems commonplace. Another one (this time the Chairman) has been using certain trade connections to interfere with local architects (who obviously prepare most of the planning applications).

And it is in the countryside locations that strip owners will have the most trouble...

It's all very well saying one should stand for the committee (a sentiment I obviously agree with) but only another muppet with under the table ambitions will want to do this kind of job. One would need to replace the whole committee in one go.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

One councillor (a Cons one) was phoning up locals in the village, the evening before the committee hearing, asking them to come along and object.

Sounds a bit bizarre. Whilst "public speaking rights on planning applications" is in general a Good Thing(TM), there do need to be some rules. On my council the rule is that if you've put in a written objection in time then you may speak against, provided that you give notice, again in time, of your intention to speak. (That's notice to officers, of course, not councillors.) "The night before" is far too late for both.

There is, by the way, nothing wrong with a councillor campaigning either for or against a planning application, provided either that they're not a member of the committee or that they declare at the meeting that they're taking sides and withdraw from the room whilst the application is discussed and voted on. The rules about how much they're allowed to lobby their mates on the committee in private before the meeting are a little unclear, but it's absolutely clear that it's completely illegal for their mates to make their minds up before the meeting, or for there to be a party whip.

When either applicants or objectors ask me for my support I point out to them that if I were to offer them my support they wouldn't get my vote, as by law I'd have to leave the room whilst the application they're interested in is discussed. At this point most people decide that they don't after all want me to declare for their side in advance and are happy just to make sure that I understand their point of view.

[vanHorck]

Local councillors in Holland are no better, just for your info. Yes it is true that politics at local level too often attract a peculiar type of person although here too there are very good exceptions to the rule.

I do not object to ranting about councillors.
I do not object to writing here about ligitimate causes
Nor do i object to putting up a hangar without a permit (everyone is entitled to take a risk)

But this thread gives the destinct impression of some construction having gone up without permission and a subsequent rant afterwards towards the council threatening to pull everything down.

And that rant (given the wide readership of PPRUNE) will hardly strengthen the cause of GA.

I hope the grass reinforcement will not have to be removed and the aerodrome will live happy ever after

[IO540]

As per my previous post, I am suprised that the grass reinforcement was held to be an issue.

One could do other things (like drainage) which can also be used to increase the # of movements. In fact drainage alone could increase movements several times. Is draining a breach of Planning?

I am willing to learn on this one, but reading what is here seems bizzare. Maybe it is not the whole story.

[gasax]

Given my recent experience of 'planning in action' it is probably true.

My strip was alongside a golf course. Originally farmland, the owner went through all the hurdles necessary and it was officially opened by our local councillor.

2 years later Jim put in alternative tees to save the wear on the originals. The council then took enforcement action for unpermitted development.

There were 6 tees which were about 20 foot square and about a foot high, grassed naturally and with gentle sloped up to them (so the mower was able to cut them without problems....... On a site of approximately 200 acres.

Absolute nonsense. But unfortunately true.