How prevalent is unethical and/or corrupt behavior in planning?

[Bramco]

1 hour ago, saveasteading said:

And the number of times i have heard the head of planning or chairman explaining utter basics to the members!

 

In our case, they both were ignorant of the actual legislation - or maybe they were pandering to the 'oooohhh, it's Green Belt, you can't build there!!' mob.  But the legislation of course says otherwise for 5 specific cases of application. They should have been cognisant of this and directed the ctte appropriately, as our case, as the appeal proved met one of the criteria.

[twice round the block]

I see 9 members of Leeds planning department have been bailed with an ongoing investigation into bribery.

 

Oh what a surprise.... not.

[ToughButterCup]

On 05/12/2024 at 09:09, Alan Ambrose said:

I’m intending to visit the next couple. From the ones I’ve seen online, they seem mostly as dull as ditchwater. ‘Point of order chairman….’ etc.

 

Before you go, it might be useful to sift through the Minutes of the relevant Committee. Patterns will emerge, especially if you look at things like political affliation. Attendance records can be instructive .... Have a look also at some of the relevant Decision Notices and see who on the Committe always follows the Planning Officers recommndation - or who doesn't and think about why. 

[saveasteading]

5 hours ago, twice round the block said:

what a surprise.... not.

I looked this up. 4 staff members, and 5 other persons.

Have you anything more on this as it seems to be an allegation, and  unspecified,  not a known default so it isn't proving anything as you suggest.

 

I'd say the chances of 4 staff being illegally in cahoots is quite small, but I guess the team get arrested and bailed to allow questioning.

 

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> Before you go, it might be useful to sift through the Minutes of the relevant Committee.

 

Noted, I'm going tomorrow.

 

A bit more info on Leeds:

 

https://www.lgcplus.com/politics/governance-and-structure/four-planning-staff-at-met-arrested-over-suspected-bribery-offences-09-12-2024/

 

[Roger440]

You would have to imgaine there must be some degree of corruption, simply because the sums of money at stake can be huge. With that much at stake, persuading the planner with sums that could take months or years to earn, looks like an easy solution.

 

It will be interesting to see where the leeds case leads. 

[Alan Ambrose]

I said I would report back from the planning meeting. Firstly, it was personally useful as I said hello to our planning officer who I had only communicated with by email (he, by coincidence presented the first two applications on the agenda) and also the councillor for our area who had called-in a couple of the applications.

 

The layout was interesting, with the councillors in a big horseshoe and the 'public' squeezed into a small rectangle. There was a small table for the 'public' to speak from with all the councillors and relevant planning officers bearing down on them. The planning officer spent an age going through each application showing a dozen or more drawings and photos, walking through the history etc, and doing a reasonable job of summarising the LPA's position and the issues at hand.

 

The councillors were an interesting lot. Some said nothing at all, some reacted a bit to the officer's presentation, some were chummy with the planning officers, one sat apart and only had a list of pre-prepared points on a couple of the applications.

 

Some of the 'public' spoke - an architect and a planning consultant speaking for some of the applications and a bevy of town council / posh residents / hired consultants obviously co-ordinated over their objections. As it was getting late, I left after 3 hours and 3 applications, but the meeting was sure to on for another hour or more.

 

Pretty much as expected, but interesting all the same. I'm still not sure of the process for getting an application called-in.

 

[Roundtuit]

29 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

I'm still not sure of the process for getting an application called-in.

 

Not sure what other routes are available, but I wrote to our local councillor with a reasoned argument and asked him to call our (free go) application in. Before the scheduled meeting the LPA backed down so I didn't get the 'Parish Council experience'.

[joe90]

48 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

I'm still not sure of the process for getting an application called-in.

I got ours called in by getting a councillor to do it, I called him and explained the situation and he was sympathetic HOWEVER, he voted against me, as did everyone else and would not look me in the eye at the meeting. I was told by an anonymous source everyone was told to vote against my application 

 

CORRUPT OR WHAT !!,!

 

Revenge was sweet when at appeal I won on all grounds and the planning department were told they were not abiding by their own policies and threatened with official action (never heard any more though).

[saveasteading]

2 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

not sure of the process for getting an application called-in.

It is as you surmised. A  councillor can require it to be removed from a delegated decision, to being put before the councillors of the planning committee.

so you have to convince your councillor or, very unlikely, the councillor for another ward.

1 hour ago, joe90 said:

everyone was told to vote against my application 

I have seen that . It was where a councillor was pushing a vote towards something that was contrary to fundamental policy, so guaranteed to be appealed against.

I expect there are party lines too, at the bigger councils.

[Alan Ambrose]

I only get the headlines rather that the full article, so we'll have to wait until it's picked up by other press...

 

 

 

[saveasteading]

7 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

the headlines rather

How vague can it be?   claim sparked, alleges, allegation, persons unknown, approached, revealed.

Is there a journalist dictionary of words to reduce credibility?

not a single concrete detail.....I forecast that this is a non story as click bait.

 

I think I  heard that somebody was said to be possibly alleging a rumour that is  apparently something about corruption somewhere....maybe.

 

3 x half a mil bribes.....these must be rather large projects, if not imaginary.

[kandgmitchell]

Don't forget cowardice or political expediency. Councillors can vote against an application that has a lot of local opposition despite a recommendation for approval by officers - that way those nasty government Inspectors approve the scheme not us councillors who want your vote next election time to stay in post.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, saveasteading said:

Is there a journalist dictionary of words to reduce credibility

Yes.

 

Radio 4: How to read the news

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001v3f3

 

[phykell]

Approaching this from another angle, what about a subject access request for all details of internal correspondence, e.g. emails, minutes of meetings, recordings/transcripts of telephone conversations regarding a given planning application/appeal? If you do suspect corruption, this might be a place to start. 

[Alan Ambrose]

My question was as written. ‘How common?’ i.e. about understanding the context of the planning world we inhabit.

 

It wasn’t code for ‘do I think it’s happening on anything I’m involved in?’

 

Re: the ‘bribe claim’, I see the Slough Observer and The Observer are another source:

 

https://www.sloughobserver.co.uk/news/24878224.slough-bribery-claims-developers-asked-pay-500-000/

 

[phykell]

It wasn't my intention to suggest that it was anything you were involved in but I shouldn't have limited my suggestion to corruption only - my emphasis would have been on unethical behaviour because I suspect that's far more common, hopefully, than outright corruption such as bribery.

Perhaps I should have said, "If people do suspect unethical behaviour and/or corruption for a given planning application/appeal, interested parties could try exercising the right to a subject access request.

[Alan Ambrose]

Apologies, good point - and I think you’re right. I once had a dispute with one of the UK clearing banks where they bounced a big cheque twice … even after I notified them the first time. A ‘SAR’ got me reams (pretty much an entire ream of paper) or really badly formatted info. However, in there was a couple of nuggets of info which helped get the result we wanted.