Wirral West Conservatives

This statement - - was designed by Councillor David Elderton and developed by officers. It is produced at the end of each month and sent to all members of the Cabinet and Finance & Best Value Overview & Scrutiny Committee per the decision of Cabinet on 24 May 2007.From this month a copy is being sent to the Chairs of Scrutiny Committees.

 

The pressures remain within Adult Social Services and Children & Young People, mainly in respect of care services, and actions continue to have an impact. For Adult Social Services the projection remains at £2.2 million overspend (on a budget of £78 million). For Children’s Services the projected overspend has reduced from £1.3 million to £0.8 million (on a budget of £59 million) essentially through the use of Standards Fund grant.In terms of service re-engineering 5 departments have still to finalise their Service Re-engineering savings for 2007/08 and the outstanding amounts of £2.286 million are shown in detail in the statement.Progress has been made in Technical Services but in addition to Adults and Children difficulties are being reported by Regeneration with the department unlikely to achieve the desired savings. Efforts continue to be made that will essentially comprise ‘one-off’ items in the current year.

The Government announcement regarding the capitalisation of the Back Pay element of the Equal Pay settlement was received at the end of September. Wirral’s ability to capitalise should cover the projected settlements and provision has been made in the budget for the borrowing costs of this action.

Decisions made by Cabinet during the year have increased the planned level of departmental spend by £0.3 million. Cabinet also agreed the final report for 2006/07 which showed an underspend that added £0.9 million to the balances. The projected balances at 31 March 2008 are £5.1 million. The balances will be reduced if the pressures do result in overspends and efforts are being made to minimise the impact which would otherwise result in balances being reduced by £3.6 million to £1.5 million.

The above may all sound like mathematical ‘goble-de-gook’ to some - but it represents a major problem for the Council in balancing the books without making substantial reductons in the provision of services. Your Conservative councillors continue to carefully monitor the situation.

Copies of the detailed spreadsheet are available on request by contacting David Elderton by e-mail at ‘davidelderton@wirral.gov.uk’

Brussels, 11th October 2007 — Britain was let down by the Prime Minister again today as he continued to peddle his myth that the EU reform treaty is not the original, rejected Constitution. (Why is he the only one in the country who truly believes that he is protecting the UK interests?)
 

In a week when the Labour-dominated European Scrutiny Committee concluded that the two documents are equivalent in substance, Gordon Brown, following talks with President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, continued to stick to his line that they bear little relation to each other.
 

He also talked a lot about safeguarding the British national interest just days after Labour chairman of the Scrutiny Committee Michael Connarty said he feared Gordon Brown’s supposed red-lines would “leak like a sieve”.
 

Deputy Leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament Sir Robert Atkins MEP said:
 

“Only a week away from the crucial Lisbon summit, Gordon Brown today had another opportunity to genuinely stand up for Britain’s national interest. Once again he blew that chance and instead continued to peddle the myth that the new reform treaty he intends to sign is not the original, rejected European Constitution.

 

“The national interest can only truly be served if Gordon Brown delivers on the referendum he promised the British people.”

What do you think? Should we get out of Europe and merely retain our strong trading links?

High lights and key decisions from ‘Planning’ meeting held on 9^th October 2007.

 

An extra ordinary Planning Committee Meeting was held at Wallasey Town Hall on 9^th October 2007 in the Civic Hall and debated two controversial applications – The Warrens PCT site and the ‘Neptune’ proposal at New Brighton. See details below.

 

20076505 - THE WARRENS NURSERIES, THINGWALL
 

This outline application for the construction of a One Stop Medical Centre on the Green Belt Warren’s site was recommended for approval by officers., Councillor David Elderton was outraged at the proposal and moved refusal - on the grounds that the applicant had totally failed to demonstrate ‘very special circumstances’ necessary to justify building on the green belt. The move to refuse received overwhelming all party support (with only two dissenters) and the application was refused.
 

20076181 - PHASE II REGENERATION SCHEME, NEW BRIGHTON
 

This outline application was recommended for approval. Following presentation of petitions and comprehensive debate the officer’s recommendation to approve received overwhelming cross party support (subject to one dissenter). The recommendation to approve was endorsed subject to conditions.
 

Above information is correct at time of going to press – but is subject to confirmation.
 

Proceedings of planning committees are now recorded and available for viewing on the web. See Wirral MBC web site for access details.
(As the meeting held on 9 10 07 was in the Civic Hall, web cast video was not available from that location)
 

Planning Officers had recommended approval for the development - but Conservative Group Spokesman on the committee (Councillor David Elderton) made a statement relating exclusively to planning issues and moved ‘refusal’ on the grounds that the applicant had failed to demonstrate the ‘very special circumstances’ nededto justify the construction of the medical centre on Green Belt Land. 

Councillor Elderton’s move to refuse received overwhelming all party support – with only two dissenters – and the application was refused.
The unedited formal statement made by Councillor Elderton is given below+++
Having directed the development and construction of many multi-million pound hospital and health related facilities all over the north of England, I welcome any improved health care facilities in this area BUT
 
It would be helpful to summarise matters that we should take into account before making any decision on this application based on purely planning grounds.
 
The area on which this PCT facility is proposed to be located is - in accordance with the Unitary Development Plan for Wirral - scheduled as green belt land.
 
The outline proposal to erect a health centre on this land is not a ‘permitted use’ within established Green Belt policy – and a similar application was turned down in January 2004 for this reason amongst others (OUT2003/6894/D).
 
The only way that this use can be permitted is if there are ‘very special circumstances’ demonstrated to justify the conflict with national green belt policy to allow construction at this location.
 
Let me read a brief, recent edited extract from ‘Wirral Matters’ on the subject of the green belt (in bold print) – which some of you may believe is relevant.
The Wirral Green belt was previously part of the Cheshire Green Belt, prior to local government reorganisation, and was formalised in 1983.
The boundary to be decided upon was the subject of major public consultation and a lengthy public inquiry presided over by a government inspector.
 
Following that inquiry, the Inspectorate made a decision on the eventual boundaries of the Wirral Green Belt.
 
It was deliberately drawn as tightly as possible, as the inspector recognised that the fragile character of the peninsula could soon be lost altogether if such action was not taken urgently.
Over the years, this planning committee has robustly protected the Wirral Green belt in accordance with the government inspector’s decision.
 
We now need to be very careful that we do not make the wrong decision for the wrong reasons.
 
In my opinion, the applicant has not demonstrated ‘very special circumstances’ and need for this development to be located on this site. In addition, I believe there to be access and road safety issues that are not (and have not been) entirely satisfactorily resolved.
 
It might also be noted that whilst this current outline application may appear to be the most attractive solution of those currently investigated and included in the report – I believe that there are now more appropriate sites available or becoming available that could provide a far better long term solution.
 
In view of all the above, it is my view that ‘very special circumstances’ that needed to be identified to build on this site’ have not been demonstrated and the application should be refused because it is an inappropriate development in the Green Belt.
 

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.