Marsh Lane Watch
On the evening of Tuesday December 28 someone or a group did some minor vandalism in Merston hamlet, pushing railway sleepers on to the road, ripping off part of a car registration plate, tearing off part of wooden fence. I reported to Community Wardens by email. Got a standard response. No follow up.
A division is developing between the parish council and the Mundham and Runcton Residents Association over the Nature's Way Foods proposal for a packhouse on the Chichester Food park. MARRA is strongly opposed, while the parish has registered no objection. My own position is that the application complies with HDA planning policy. There are concerns about visual profile and the parish has written seeking improved landscaping. There are concerns about footprint and vehicle movements. On the footprint, the proposal is a mirror image of the existing packhouse near Vinnetrow Road. On vehicle movements, County Highways has registered no objection. I think MARRA should review its position.
Delivering Focus in Oving, I noticed that the flint wall in Church Lane had been completed as proposed by the owner of the property earlier in the year following his request to fell trees growing out of the bank. It looks good and it was the right decision.
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Marsh Lane Watch
Teleloader was used at Walnut Tree Composting site after hours on December 18 to remove snow so that work could begin promptly on Monday December 21 at 08:30. Nothing wrong with that.
The Westminster debacle involving Vince Cable and other LibDem ministers making statements to under cover Telegraph reporters says little edifying for both sides. The Telegraph demonstrating its naked Tory bias used unethical and completely unwarranted methods to extract damaging comments from LibDem ministers.
The ministers for their part should have remembered the very first lesson for a politician, never say anything in public nomatter to whom, that you would not like to see in print. How Cable could have been so indiscreet given his position in government is very disappointing. You almost wonder if Murdoch's people weren't involved in the sting.
The Telegraph must have been losing readers to mount such a dishonourable practice. I hope among its more thoughtful readers, there must be some, this affair may show what a hollow boast its claim is to be the most read quality paper.
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Marsh Lane Watch
On Saturday December 18 at around 15:00 I heard a teleloader at work on the Walnut Tree Composting Site. According to the February 10, 2003 County Council permit there is to be no work on the site between 13:00 on Saturdays and 08:00 on Mondays. I shall need to investigate.
Planning officers refuse the nursery school application on grounds of its not being sustainable.
I decided not to invoke the red card procedure to have the nursery school application O/10/04414/ful brought to committee. Having read all the papers on the site and studied relevant planning policy documents I judged the application met neither of the two criteria for red card, namely 'a major development' or one that had attracted 'an exceptional level of public interest.'
A member of the Development Control committee received a call at 23:00 from a relative of the applicant. I think this is unacceptable behaviour.
Officers brief members on government grant settlement that turns out worse than expected. For reasons I can't understand we had not factored in that the government would deduct the potential cost reduction arising from the transfer of responsibility for planning services to the new national park. That reduction is greater than the anticipated fees for providing the service.
Overall there will be a reduction of 15.5 per cent against an expected 10 per cent. We had expected in the first year of the four year period to maintain services more or less at the current level. This expectation will have to be revised.
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Pressure is mounting on me to bring an application for a nursery school at Woodhorn Farm to committee on the grounds that officers are minded to turn it down on grounds of sustainability.
Government announces its grant settlement for local authorities. At time of writing officers are studying the implications of our particular settlement. All we know is that it is worse than we expected.
Meeting of liaison group monitoring the operations of the Walnut Tree composting site. It has been a good quarter with rare instances of odour. KPS, the site operators for the last five years, are not renewing their contract that expires December 31. There were lots of problems to begin with but in the last two years or so the management of the site improved and odour has been far less.
Coalition gets tuition fees trebling through the Commons with a small majority of 21. Many Lib Dems opposed, including formers leaders Charles Kennedy and Ming Campbell, or abstained. Nick Clegg and Vince Cable walked 'through the fire' together and took the flak, diverting it from Cameron whose idea it was. Government is always a matter of compromises. The problem is that the quality of university education is so variable, that too many people now go to university thanks to Labour policies, and that we have underfunded universities ever since Thatcher. LibDems should have gone to the wire to fight the ridiculous ring fencing of the health service and to oppose the transfer of the necessary increase in university funding from the Treasury to the students.
It might all be forgotten come May 2011 but I doubt it.
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Marsh Lane Watch
Snows has fallen but the cloud has lifted as residents rejoice at the result of the County Planning Committee's decision to reject Langmead Farms' application for an anaerobic digester. Sitting in on the meeting, listening to the officers' presentation and exchanges with members it became clearer to me than it had ever been that this was an absurd proposal for the Chichester Food Park.
The effort of officers to stretch the planning policy to accommodate the application seemed almost disingenuous. How they or the officers of CDC before them could really believe that a massive power plant was an appropriate development for land set aside for horticulture stretched credibility. And the whole barrage of claims of reducing landfill, saving local farmers the cost of ploughing failed crops, moving waste up the waste hierarchy were clearly absolute nonsense. And the members were not taken in.
It demonstrated once again that officers are enjoined to provide professional advice but it is for members to decide. The members of the Planning Committee did an excellent job, not because they came out against a preposterous proposal but because they were not to be misled by poorly produced papers and weakly argued recommendations.
Walking down Marsh Lane, it was a pleasure to look at the skyline of the Food Park and to know that it had survived a major assault that at one time looked a cert. At least for now.
The Chichester Observer carries the AD Plant decision on its front page. Fast work.
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