Our Planning Department in meltdown: suggest the next step please

[ToughButterCup]

To keep this post on a professional level, I'm not going to name the Planning authority in this post, but it isn't hard to work out for yourself. I write about this problem here with great reluctance because I've exhausted all the normal ways of trying to communicate with officials. And it's not a phenomenon which affects only me. I've asked as many local people as I can and broadly, they all say the same thing. 

 

My question is what do I do now to try and break the logjam?

 

In the building sector, the locality is booming. There's not white-van man without work. There's not a street or avenue without scaffolding. In the mornings, scaffolders jossle with each other in the Butty Bars and Spa breakfast bars. Some, still coked to the eyeballs, josh and snarl. Chippies swop horror stories in the carpark outside Spa. 'Tother morning, - at the bus stop : you couldn't make it up - I heard two chippies going hammer and tongs at one another about what level a dado rail should be fitted. Scaffolding is put up months before any work takes place. And  finished work on one part of building means that scaffolding is whipped down there  pronto. 

A local development area has been defined: its official name is The A [road number deleted ] Corridor. Geotechnical crews have their rigs up in the fields locally. Cores are being taken. A new development village - schools, shops and all - has been planned. Work starts next year. The local BM boss cycles past my place regularly, and stops to pass the time of day.

 

."Ian, know of anyone who wants a driving job: I need at least five Class 1s and any number of old blokes like you with a Grandad licence? " 

"Soon as get my hips done, I'm yer man - you just need to get the suggestion past the wife. Coffee's on ....  no? Oh, shame"

That was close. I've got a Class 1 licence - just keeping it quiet.

 

You get the picture: the place is fizzing.

 

We've got more than  our aliquot  of Nimbies. To a man (stuff political correctness: sorry girls) they're the ones who objected to our house. Now, not so much rictus-grinners, as developer partners. Every Man Jack and Jackie one of them has - if they have it-  sold that itzy bitzy postage stamp of a veg garden and put up a few bijou hizzez. Including the (then) local Kynsella whose objection to our des-res was:

 

It (our house) would spoil my Sunday morning walk along that chocolate box lane.  As  a saint would say  Fer Fek's Sake man.

 

Now, we have a little local difficulty. Doesn't matter what it is. If you've read my stuff. you know what it is.

 

I cannot get anyone offical to talk to me about it. All the offical local channels - silence No Reply. Despite automatically generated emails lying to you that someone will be along in a minnit

 

And every  councillor at County and local levels say the same. Our Planner says the same. The LPA are just not talking to anyone. Our architect agrees. Forget yer MP: just a message handling service.

 

I'm all out of ideas. Over to you Commentariat. What would you do?

[SteamyTea]

I used to have 2 hour lectures, but there was less than 10 minutes information in them.

I feel the same has happened here.  A Robert McNamara moment.

What is the question you are asking?

This is not the same as who you should be asking it of.

[Tennentslager]

Direct action...

[epsilonGreedy]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

What is the question you are asking?

 

 

I think this was @ToughButterCup's submission for the 2022 Booker Prize in the short creative story category but he posted it here by mistake.

 

The Booker panel is going to be very confused when they open Ian's competition entry and find a question about revising a self builders VAT claim.

[ToughButterCup]

Quote

My question is what do I do now to try and break the logjam?

 

3 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

...

And every  councillor at County and local levels say the same. Our Planner says the same. The LPA are just not talking to anyone. Our architect agrees. Forget yer MP: just a message handling service.

 

I'm all out of ideas. Over to you Commentariat. What would you do?

 

2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

...

What is the question you are asking?

...

 

So, you haven't got an answer either .......

[SteamyTea]

9 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

So, you haven't got an answer either .......

Well not from you.

Are you asking who you need to ask a question of.

You need a question to ask.

Otherwise we are all just guessing.

[ToughButterCup]

Never mind just forget it.

 

[ProDave]

Is this about inaction of the planners re a planning enforcement matter?

[joe90]

51 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Is this about inaction of the planners re a planning enforcement matter?

That was my guess but not sure, common @ToughButterCup give us a straight question we can understand (I don’t speak upnorth)

[Temp]

I believe the only way is to play by the rules...

 

File a planning application.

 

Do not agree to a time extension. (They will write saying they will assume you agree unless you respond).

 

When the 8 weeks are up file an Appeal for non-determination.

 

With luck that will concentrate minds at the planners. You might find they approve it rather than go to appeal or ask for changes. They may even wait until just before the Appeal Date.

 

The appeal will take a long time to be heard but it will eventually happen. Perhaps make it clear to the Appeal Inspector you are willing to consider some changes but the planning department didn't have the resources to engage.

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

10 hours ago, ProDave said:

Is this about inaction of the planners re a planning enforcement matter?

No.

It's about a generalised lack of communication.  Everyone I talk to who attempts to communicate with the planning department tells the same story.  If you need the Planning department to talk to you,  they simply don't. 

'We' (at Parish level) called in our Planning Councillor.  At a public meeting he explained that the department no longer had the capacity to talk to members of the public. 

 

I am involved in an ongoing issue with enforcement.  But that,  in the normal course of events would be discussed , a resolution agreed and action taken. Nothing has happened for years now. Nothing. Now in addition the planners simply refuse to communicate. They have not told us that they regard the matter as closed.

 

In common with every other person with whom I discuss planning matters in general I find that none of us gets a reply to any questions we ask. It's a simple generalised wall of silence . It's very disconcerting. 

 

I am out of ideas - short of going to the local press - of what to do next. Hence this post.

Edited November 7, 2021 by ToughButterCup

[dpmiller]

I hate to say it but... there's a global pandemic thingy. Administrative and physical processes have ground to a halt in all sorts of ways- a friend's 12yo daughter recently waited five months for an Urgent cancer investigation. It's a grand excuse this COVID but even when it's not an excuse it slows things down to walk-ing-in-custard speed.

 

If actual rules are being broken then sock it to them with the full force of legality or enforcement. Else (sorry) you're gona have to "suck it up @ToughButterCup" just like the rest of us?

[MikeSharp01]

Have you tried dealing with your internal intellectual / emotional challenges so as to get some headspace to 'just let it rest' and / or put down a marker - letter to the local paper copied to planning authority and the relevant officers professional bodies (CIH / RTPI) setting out your concerns, so you can return to it later, with incontrovertible evidence you raised it, when things ease, and then move on. Either, or other similar, would have the effect of reducing your stress around the matter and allow you stress about something else - those wardrobes for instance, and neither is an admission of defeat just a regroup.

[ProDave]

In the time I have been building this house (a surprisingly long time)  I have found the whole planning and building control system has changed.  As Ian mentions, it is almost impossible to actually get to speak to anyone.  Now if you want to communicate with either planning of building control here, you have to file a "proposal" via the Scottish edevemopment website which is really 2 in one, eplanning and ebuildingstandards.  A "proposal" is not a planning application (though it could be) but it is a way of selecting what it is you want to communicate with them about.  My last 2 "proposals" were a temporary habitation certificate about a year ago and a completion certificate just recently.

 

During the process of dealing with both of these I did get some communication by email from the BC officer dealing with it, but the "result" was an email from the ebuildingstandards portal giving me the outcome.

 

I found the whole procedure clumsy, clunky and impersonal.  I can't see how it saves them work other than perhaps the whole thing is so clumsy that someone with a trivial matter might not bother to proceed and write to the newspaper instead?

 

I don't think this change has anything to do with manpower or staffing issues rather is has been something dictated by the Scottish government that all councils should be using,  No doubt someone somewhere thinks it is a big improvement and are congratulating themselves on such a wonderful system.

 

This won't be the reason for Ian's issues but may give a clue to the way procedures are changing.

 

One other comment in that respect, the BC officer when inspecting for completion came clutching a big wad of paperwork and drawings, and commented "this is one of the last ones still done with paper files"

[Onoff]

12 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

I think this was @ToughButterCup's submission for the 2022 Booker Prize in the short creative story category but he posted it here by mistake.

 

The Booker panel is going to be very confused when they open Ian's competition entry and find a question about revising a self builders VAT claim.

 

It's Zoot masquerading!

[DragsterDriver]

Building Control are ok around here- but they’ll also tell you planning are hiding behind covid.

 

being ignored is probably the worst feeling, planning never replied to a single email or phone call. Yeah you may be busy but pick up the phone and give me an excuse at least...

 

[MikeSharp01]

20 minutes ago, ProDave said:

congratulating themselves on such a wonderful system

or "congratulating themselves on having sold the public sector such a wonderful system"

[ToughButterCup]

I take all the points above. I accept that in the grand scheme of things,  my issue is minor. Yes there's a pandemic. Yes processes have changed and will change still further.  

 

But the broad openly debated issue here is that in this area, the opportunity has been taken to evade public accountability. A handful of large developers do manage to have their agendas discussed in public (hence the description of the local scene above). If you are Joe Public, you stand no chance at all of a reply to a normal question. 

 

But simple silence engenders suspicion: hiding behind COVID ? Maybe.  Maybe not entirely.  A good lie depends on a hint of truth.

Our local A+E can publish average waiting times updated hourly - outside the front door. Why can't a Planning Department openly publish currently expected service levels. In this case, silence has been used as a weapon. In exactly the same way as an argument with a close family member who uses silence as such.

My enforcement issue is very minor indeed. The bigger  picture is much more worrying. 

[SteamyTea]

Get Zoot and EpsilonGreedy to ask the questions of them.

Then you know there will be no communication.

[Onoff]

For a few years I thought the days of graft in work, politics and council circles etc were a thing of the past. What with people even refusing to take a Christmas bottle or let you pay for breakfast.

 

I've seen and heard things though over the last few years that left me very down over the whole process of fair tendering and officials twisting planning processes to their own ends. 

 

Money goes to money and it's very hard to break into that circle. It's who you know etc. That's me ****ed with my ASD! ?

 

Maybe it's necessary to join the funny handshake brigade to get ahead?

[MikeSharp01]

39 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

If you are Joe Public, you stand no chance at all of a reply to a normal question. 

Was it ever thus? Perhaps the former system gave an illusion of control to the 'little' people while the people who are prepared to oil the wheels from the top down, take a look at almost any (and I mean any) newspaper front page today (07.11.2021), and you will get an inkling of one of the, many many, things that are happening. For instance: (Sunday Times)  pay £3m and get a seat in the house of Lords. Buy a peerage and your letter will be answered very quickly if sent to planning thus denying time for others (more lowly) to have their queries answered QED. (Your solution then is just to pay £3m and your problems will be solvable.) It is a systems thing, allow a change somewhere - give inordinately more power to a few, and it has effects throughout the system including taking any sort of control away from the many. I am sure that you will know that all systems create their outcomes perfectly - IE the current configuration of the system makes things 'exactly' as they are. These coupled to the general cutting back of funds to local authorities and your perfect, even standpoint dependent, storm is created. Looked at that way one can be forgiven for seeing the power grab / balance that has been somewhat deliberately camouflaged, and is often wholly and wrongly excused - in my view, by COVID. 

Edited November 7, 2021 by MikeSharp01
added in my view.

[MikeSharp01]

21 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Maybe it's necessary to join the funny handshake brigade to get ahead?

Might be a start, but rather a long road - just pay the £3m and be done with it.

[ToughButterCup]

OK, I read the replies above as; there's no easy answer .

 

I'll follow the standard rule then. Voice or Exit.

 

Exit it is.

[joe90]

All I can say is I am glad my build is finished, missed planners not talking, missed shortage of materials and high prices, I am very lucky, I don’t envy anyone trying to deal with any of the above.

[Ferdinand]

The procedural approach may be a report to Overview & Scrutiny at the Council. But I am an even bigger cynic than you are about Council complaints' procedures.

 

Not sure if that will help.

 

But I'm still not really sure what you are asking, other than a general complaint expressed elliptically in (nearly) blank verse.

 

IF you are after a reform, then it is join a campaign group and wait 10 years.

 

Is your garden big enough to sell a bit to a developer?

 

It may at least get rid of your permanent temporary neighbour if a Housing Estate gets built on it, and he moves to blingoland.

 

(Shouldn't your area be one of those being levelled-up?)