Consultation
Letter from Cllr Jon Barry to Mark Cullinan Council CEO - 25 July 06
To Mark Cullinan
Chief Executive
Lancaster City Council
Dalton Square
Lancaster.
Cc: cabinet members
Mark,
Re: Complaint about canal corridor report
I would like to make an official complaint about the report on the canal corridor proposal meeting. As I’m sure you realised last week, I am astonished that cabinet members were not given information on the scheme in order to judge whether they liked it or not. The response that this is 'for the planning committee to decide' is, in my view, very wrong. I think that this is the biggest issue that has arisen in the seven years I have been on the Council apart, perhaps, from the M6 link road – for which the City Council is not directly responsible anyway. Given the recent history of the City Council in development proposals (Crinkly Bottom), we must get this right.
The ‘leave it to the planning committee’ approach would be acceptable if none of the land in question belonged to the City Council. However, this is not the case. It is absurd that the owner of the land should appoint a consultant to come up with a plan and then not comment on what they think about it. Imagine if I appointed an architect to design a new extension for my house and then I said 'I won’t make a decision on what I think about your design – I’ll just leave it to the planning committee'.
Many planning policies are set nationally and the Council has much less control over what happens providing that the development broadly agrees with the planning brief.
Principles of local democracy (which I know are very important to you personally) demand that the Council makes its own mind up about its own developments.
When the Council decided to redevelop the Kingsway site (twice) they debated long and hard about which, if any, design they liked. Personally, I didn’t like what they came up with – but at least the debate was had and the principle that the Council should input into its own developments was accepted by officers and members alike.
As I understand it, the process regarding the canal corridor should be:
- Centros Miller is given ‘preferred developer status’ by the Council. They come up with a plan for the site.
- Council decides whether they like the plan, considers the effect of the plan on the district and the site. Possibly suggests changes.
- Council signs the contract if it happy (or doesn’t if it isn’t).
- Plan goes to planning committee.
What officers are proposing to do is to miss out step 2. This is in contradiction to what we were told at previous meetings on this issue where the line was very much 'let Centros come up with a master plan – if we don’t like it we can just not agree it'. My understanding is that the officers are proposing that consultation should take place after planning approval has been given. This is totally in the wrong order – by then, the issue will be a done deal and the Council will have signed contracts.
I know that Ian Barker said that he was prepared to take discussion of the actual proposals by Centros Miller next Tuesday. However, I do not believe that we can adequately decide whether we like the plan (do step 2) next Tuesday because we do not have access to the relevant information. Even if such information was provided at a late stage, this would be too rushed. Therefore, I am formally asking that you defer the decision on the canal corridor until that information has been provided to cabinet members.
The information that we, as Councillors need, in order to make a proper decision is, at least:
- What is the precise plan that Centros Miller have come up with?
- What will be the impact of traffic of this plan?
- What will be the impact to the tax payer of knock-on effects such as any potential demise of the City Council’s market?
- What will be the effect of the plan on retail in the district. For this, we need access to the retail study carried out in February 2006.
- Does the Council accept the principle of knocking down buildings at Stonewell as part of a scheme involving its land?
- What alternatives are there for organisations such as the Dance Studio and the Homeless Action Centre?
- Does the Council think that the mix of retail, green space, housing etc is right?
- What are the results of the consultations carried out by Centros Miller? My understanding is a draft report of that the survey of residents has been made available to the Council – but cabinet members have not seen this.
This detailed information is not in the report that we have been presented with. My view this information must be provided so that we, as members, can make a proper and informed decision.
Cllr Jon Barry
24 July 2006