Wirral West Conservatives

29/06/2007

 

A well attended public meeting was held at 7 pm at the Civic Hall of the Town Hall on Thursdsay evening 28th June 2007. This was chaired by John Cocker - Chairman of the Planning committee. Members of the planning commitee were in the audience.

David Green (Director of Technical Services) and Brian Anderson (Assistant Director responsible for the planning function) gave a full presentation covering what had gone wrong, what was being done to prevent similar problems in future and what action could now be taken in respect of the four flawed approvals for telephone masts and control cabinets in various areas of the Borough deemed to have been given by default.

In summary, T-Mobile agents, Daly, have been in discussions with Council planning officers and have submitted alternative applications (under different application numbers to the originals) for masts to be erected near to the four sites in question. These applications are currently scheduled to be considerd by the full planning committee (to be held in public as usual) on 12th July 2007.

Each applicaton will be viewed entirely on its own merits and either approved or refused based on the planning criteria pertaining to each site. The planning committee cannot (and will not) be influenced in their quasi-legal decision making process by what has gone before.  If any - or all - of these new applications were to be refused, T-Mobile have the option of either challenging the refusals at appeal (which applies to all planning applications) or thay can ‘default’ back to constructing the masts at the sites unambiguously refused earlier by planning committee elected members - but not notified to T-Mobile in time by Council officers.

For background information, please find below the (edited) letter from David Green summarising the position as at 1st June 2007. The meeting held last evening was the culmination of proposals contained in the letter reproduced below.

Dear Resident.

I am writing to apologise unreservedly for administrative errors that have occurred relating to four Antennae Planning Applications.
The Planning applications affected are as follows:
ANT/2007/5303 – Pavement to front of 272 Hoylake Road, Moreton.
           
ANT/2007/5308 – Pavement fronting Our Lady and St John RC Church, Telegraph Road, Gayton.
ANT/2007/5349 – Rear of bus stop fronting 401 Pensby Road, Pensby.
ANT/2007/5366 - Pavement adjacent to Hamilton Memorial Church, junction of Upton Road and Shrewsbury Road, Claughton
  
Whilst each application was refused by the Council’s Planning Committee, the requisite decision notices were however not issued within the 56 days statutory period.
As a result T-Mobile legally have deemed consent for these four masts and could legally proceed with their construction. Wirral Council is now working with T-Mobile to seek alternative and more acceptable sites for these masts. The alternative sites will be subject to the usual due democratic process and will be considered by Planning Committee at a later date. (now scheduled for 12th july 2007)

A recently completed internal investigation has determined that administrative errors by staff either delayed or prevented the dispatch of the decision notices for these four applications. Stringent measures have been put in place to prevent this from ever happening again.
It is our intention to hold a meeting later this month, (meeting took place at 7pm at the Town Hall on 28th June 2007) to give members of the public affected by these four applications, the opportunity to come and talk to officers. This will enable Council officers to give a fuller explanation of what went wrong and to tell you what we are doing about it.  
I fully understand and appreciate the feelings of local residents and would like to apologise once again for the concern this will have caused. If you require any further information or advice please contact either David Green or Brian Anderson on 0151 606 2104.

Conclusion.

We all now await the conclusions of the planning committee meeting scheduled to be held on 12th July 2007 to consider alternative applcations for masts and control cabinets to be located at these four sites.
 As a member and spokesman on the quasi-judicial planning committee, I confirm that any decisions made will be based entirely on planning criteria and evidence presented to committee in respect of each of the new applications - and will not be influenced in any way by what has gone before.