Do Ipswich Tories understand planning?

I am not sure they do, but if they do it then becomes obvious they are just playing to the NIMBY crowd and trying to gain votes for May. Showing more concern for some quick votes rather than having a real concern for the town.

This Saturday, their leader, Cllr Cenci (or their MP, Ben Gummer) decided to kick off 2015 by flooding St Margaret’s Ward with a flash and I guess expensive leaflet – which informs residents that the new development on the Ipswich Northern Fringe will increase traffic times by 15 minutes! It then asks residents to go to a website, where they can download two reports that indicate travel times will increase by 15 minutes and this is where the whole Tory argument starts to fall apart.

The two reports are not from Ipswich Borough Council and are actually from a planning application by the developers of part of the site.
The website then asks you to tell Ipswich Borough Council what you could do with that 15 minutes!

Now for most of the residents who they delivered the leaflet to, can already walk into town – in less than 15 minutes. But maybe slightly more sinister, the feedback form does not go to Ipswich Borough Council, it goes to the Tory Party and not only that if you read the small print they are not going to share it with the Council as if you look carefully at the bottom of the form it states - n ‘We will not share the details with anyone outside the Conservative Party’.

So in fact instead of actually seeking resident’s views they are just attempting to capture email addresses so they can send junk mail from Mr Gummer to residents over the next 5 months. To help with this task there are only two small mentions of the word Conservative on the website page.
The leaflet also fails to mention Mr Gummer, he did later tweet alongside a picture of the leaflet that the distribution of them was helping get his ‘vision’ for Ipswich across to residents. So why no mention on the leaflet or the website of Mr Gummer?

Does he not actually agree with the sentiment of the leaflet?

Unlike it seems Cllr Cenci, does he understand the planning procedure?

Or did he want to leave his name off both the leaflet and the website so any costs for their production would not be included in his election expenses?

I would hope he does understand the planning process as it does seem to me that Cllr Cenci is slightly (to say the least) it seems unsure of the procedure.

Cllr Cenci and the majority of the Tory and Lib Dem Group voted for the Northern Fringe development, at first on twitter, Cllr Cenci seemed to want to say she never but then said she had voted for and along with the rest of the Tory Group were for the development but were against the interim Northern Fringe Masterplan. (Which they did not vote for) Cllr Cenci even went further to say she had not voted for the Northern Fringe in the last 4 hours! I guess she meant 4 years.

The Tory twitter feed also declared support for the development but only with the much needed improvements to the current infrastructure but this again highlighted the lack of planning knowledge of the Tory Group and their leader.

If the council had not adopted a Masterplan then under the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework, the current planning application for Westfield Road would have had to be approved because there was nothing to judge it against.

Now we do need new roads, schools, shops and the Masterplan does indicate that but funding for the roads will not only have to come from the developer but also the Tory run County Council and the Tory run Government in fact the much needed trunk road would actually need to be built outside the Borough in Central Suffolk. Now the Tory Government has just announced considerable spending for roads in East Anglia, the A12 in Essex and the A14 north of Cambridge. Both road improvements will benefit Ipswich residents but so would a Northern link road but I have not heard of either Ipswich Tory MP asking for it.

We need house, young Ipswich residents need family homes- and we want to help developers build them but it seems the Tories are just keen to put barriers in place, now it is not just Ipswich Borough council that need to build homes, our neighbours like Babergh are also looking to build homes and currently there are plans to build new homes in Belstead – without new roads and infrastructure but the Tories seem to think this is OK, even if residents of those new homes may end up using roads through South West Ipswich estates as their transit route to and from work. So from their silence are we right in thinking that the Tories are not concerned about extra traffic in South West Ipswich?

I the end, I believe there are just two answers to the question – ‘Do Ipswich Tories understand planning?

'No', and that is why they are confused over the need to have an adopted Masterplan’ or ‘Yes’ they do understand the planning process and are ignoring it just to gain a few quick votes by appealing to those who are against any development no matter how much infrastructure is built.

Plenty of hot wind - where is that turbine when you need it?

This week our neighbouring council, Babergh turned down a planning application for a wind turbine. The application was originally meant for two turbines one of which would have been on IBC owned land. That plan was dropped so the application was just for one turbine on farmland owned by a well known Suffolk family (who included amongst their clan, a Suffolk Tory MP)

The Tory leader in Ipswich, Cllr Cenci was quick to take to social media to tell everyone that the application had been turned down and was also quick to mention that no South West Ipswich Labour councillors had attended.

Cllr Cenci has campaigned for more than a year to see the turbines not built but she was never that keen to mention that she was part of the executive that had signed the deal with the turbine company originally. She was keen for the council to renege on the contract even if it meant that the council would be then liable for costs and a possible compensation claim.

With family living in an area that would have been able to see the turbine from their houses I know that some residents were actually keen to see the turbine but the Tory leader was keen to see the turbine rejected. Where this desire sits with Mr Cameron and his ‘Green’ credentials, I am not sure.

But even forgetting that Cllr Cenci had been a member of the executive that had signed the contract with the turbine company what annoyed me was her tweeting about the non attendance of Labour councillors at the Babergh planning meeting. What she seemed to forget was that on the same day was the Ipswich Planning meeting where 4 South West Labour councillors were attending, but she seemed to think they could miss the meeting (the one they are elected to serve on) as it was just ‘a run of the mill’ planning meeting. Not sure the residents of Brunswick Road would agree as the committee examined an application to build a house in what many would call a ‘back yard’ development.

Now I myself have tweeted about the absence of opposition councillors at meetings – but these were at our own councils meetings – the meetings that we are elected to serve on not those in another District. I mentioned this to Cllr Cenci as she had failed to attend a housing panel the week before, she had a valid excuse as she was working – but maybe the other Labour councillors who were not at our own planning committee were also working. But if Cllr Cenci is now going to be checking the attendance at meetings I hope we may see a Tory at the next East Housing panel, as not one of the 6 Tories in East Ipswich could attend, we did receive belated apologies from one but you would have thought one of the other 5 could have substituted. So maybe Cllr Cenci needs to make sure her own group turn up for meetings before she highlights the lack of Labour councillors at a meeting that they did not even have to attend!

Three takeaways planned for the John Bull pub in Wodbridge Road, Ipswich

Ipswich Borough Council has received a planning application to convert the John Bull pub on Woodbridge Rd into three hot food takeaways, with a 3 bedroom flat above.

The applicant is Quality Fish Ltd, an Ipswich business.

The planning application proposes no extension to the building and will retain the 16 space car park to the rear, the three takeaway shops will face out onto Woodbridge Rd.

You can view the proposals on the IBC ‘Planning online’ page at the Ipswich Borough Council website and the application case number is 13/00551.

A change of use permission is required from pub to hot food takeaway, so the Council could refuse the development if there were good reasons for refusal. The recent changes at the Golden Key from pub to retail did NOT require a change of use permission so the planning application was for the extension.

The application is likely to go the planning committee at IBC on the 21st August. I would like to know your views on the proposal so that I can represent you at the meeting

If you have a concern, please email me at: alasdair.ross@councillors.ipswich.gov.uk

The Levington Road problem

Planning issues have been the topic of a number of posts on various Ipswich political blogs recently, a number of these posts have been about the proposal to turn the Golden Key into a supermarket but two of the Tory supporting blogs have had an identical post about a planning application to build a bungalow in Levington Road.

Nothing wrong with that you may think? That is what political activists should do, inform residents of local issues that they may be interested in. But what has annoyed me with these two Tory posts is the assumptions, some may even say accusations made by a senior Tory councillor- someone who should know better.

The same post by Cllr Liz Harsant is published on both the Ipswich Politics and A Riverside View blogs. The post is a copy of her Evening Star column that was in the paper this Tuesday (18th October) but this is where it starts to go wrong. It seems after sending her column to the local paper she handed it over to one of her Tory colleagues to place on their blog, the post went up on the two Tory supporting blogs a week before it appeared in the paper. You would have thought they would have at least waited till the article had been printed, especially as the post is date sensitive, referring to a planning meeting that will take place tomorrow (the 19th). It makes you wonder if Nadia Cenci or Kevin Algar even read it before putting it up on their blog.

But the Evening Star decided not to publish all Cllr Harsant’s article and though it has the item about the bus shelter on Nacton Road, the ‘Star’ decided not to print the item about the Levingon Road planning application. I am not sure if that was because there was not enough room on the page or if they thought the article may be not what was expected from a senior councillor.

I have printed below the article so you can read it:
So tomorrow we will know the outcome of another application which has been submitted to the Planning Department for a bungalow at the rear of 34 to 40 Levington Road and using part of 36 and 38 Levington Road. A precedent was set back in June this year when an application for a bungalow was approved further up Levington Road towards Felixstowe Road in spite of the residents fighting against this for over 6 years – can you imagine their dismay when this was agreed. So my prediction that this would happen again is about to come true – we shall soon have another street between Levington and Salisbury Road! The site in question had some lovely trees on it and suddenly overnight the developer cut them all down. The residents are very distressed by this as many of them saw what they believed to be a bat roost in there. I am told by the Planning Officers that it is the Wildlife and Countryside Act that offers protection to any protected species and any offences under the Act are criminal offences to be dealt with by the police rather than the local planning authority. So we shall see but it is strange that biodiversity is important along the greensward on Nacton and Clapgate Lane but not important at the rear of these properties. Let’s hope the Planning Committee listen to the residents’ concerns this time. The application will be heard tomorrow Wednesday October 19th at Grafton House.

Now from the tone of the article it seems to me that Cllr Harsant is implying that she thought a decision had already been agreed on before the planning application had been heard by the committee, now as a senior councillor she should know better than most that planning decisions should not be political and certainly not decided on before the meeting. That has certainly been the way it works since I have been a substitute on planning and quite often we find ourselves as Labour Councillors not always voting together. Cllr Harsant repeated again that she thought the decision had already been made when she gave her comments at the planning meeting. Now I am sure many of the public think that planning is dealt with behind closed doors but it is not, I have never heard of a planning decision being made by a group before the meeting, certainly not by the Labour Group. She also implied that many of the residents, especially some of the more elderly were not happy with the way the property company had behaved – that should be a police matter not something that the planning committee should or could deal with. Cllr Harsant was also concerned about a possible bat living in one of the trees, I am glad she seems to be now caring about our local wildlife as she certainly did not seem to display the same passion for protecting wildlife when she gave the reasons behind the last Tory administration’s plan to sell off Kiln Meadow.

Anyway for all of Cllr Harsants predictions, on Wednesday the application was refused by the planning committee. (However, Christchurch can appeal against our decision, in which case an Inspector will investigate the case and make a final decision.)
But the posts by Cllr Harsant all seem to be part of a tactic to blame the Labour administration for building on back gardens and any small available space in East Ipswich.

We need to correct that misleading impression that Labour committee members have supported building on backland plots in Levington Road. This was not the case on Wednesday. Nor was it the case on any of the occasions where Christchurch Property applied to build on a similar backland plots behind 8-18 Levington Road.

In reality, Labour have consistently led the arguments against every application (and in every case, against the council officers’ recommendations.) The planning committee won two appeals against Christchurch Property. In the end the committee were left with no planning reasons for refusal, and planning committee members of all political parties voted for the single bungalow behind 34-40. Nobody was happy about this, but it was better than Christchurch’s first application – a row of terraced houses and chalet bungalow.

However, Labour members were so worried by this attempt by a developer to build what amounted to another, unplanned street in between two roads, Levington and Salisbury, that in 2009 we added a proposal into the Council’s Local Development Planning Framework. We wanted to give the local authority the power to refuse applications like Christchurch’s. We actually called it the ‘Levington Road problem’ because this was the place where we had found ourselves, in the end, without strong enough planning reasons to refuse an application nobody wanted except the developer.

We are also very worried by the government’s new National Policy Planning Framework (which has been described as a ‘developer’s charter’), and by local Tory MP Dan Poulter’s comments – he thinks there should be more building in places like East Ipswich because he doesn’t want any building on North Ipswich. As we know, this means more houses crammed into places like Levington Road – which already have enough houses and people and traffic.