Dear Philippa,

 

Only a week to go. Easter was very disruptive, of course, but I enjoyed a very happy day on Sunday eating a turkey with friends. Rosie the dog was ill so it wasn’t all festivity. After a few days she rallied and is now doing well.

 

In my election brochure – leaflet is a better word – I called for greater transparency in planning decisions, and suggested that they should be evidence-based rather than, as they appear, capricious. This seems to have struck a chord. I recently came across a case where a chapel, which had been converted unsympathetically to a dwelling many years ago, had passed on to the next generation and the new owner had submitted a planning application to improve the building. 

 

The application was rejected on the grounds that this was not a chapel, but a barn. The alterations should therefore reflect the building’s history, said the planning officer, who offered an alternative vision, which was mostly awful, but it did, sort of, look like a barn. The applicant questioned the barn designation and was told that, because it was in a field it had to be a barn. The fact that people had been singing hymns in it for two hundred years, the presence of “church windows” and other ecclesiastical features, none of this was persuasive to the planners. One wonders if they ever visited the site, or consulted old OS maps, or asked a farmer if he would house cattle in it or store hay there. As you know, my house started life as an Elizabethan school – the First Elizabeth that is – but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to be told by the planners that it looks like a wool sorting shed and that I should modify it accordingly.

 

My own dealings with the planners were not difficult. As I considered what I would like to do I met the planning officer to discuss it, had another, on-site, meeting at which I was given guidance as to what was likely to be approved and what not and drew up plans accordingly and got what I wanted. Now, I hear, we shall have to pay for such informal advice. This is outrageous. They are behaving as if the planning department is a service that we choose to use, whereas it is in fact a jurisdiction to which we are obliged to submit, which has considerable legal powers. After all, if just by saying so they can declare a building, whose stones have been hallowed by two centuries of prayer, to be a barn, what can they not amuse themselves by doing. How would it be if we popped into the local police station to check on the legal requirements for child restraint in a car, only to be told “that’ll be fifty quid, guv”?

 

Anyway, only a week to go. I have decided not to go to the count – hanging about in a draughty town hall until four in the morning is not for me, not with my dicky bladder. If necessary I’ll get a doctor’s note.

 

By the way, my posters at the tip have been removed by order of the Council. They were put up at the start of the race and the Council ethics officers sprang into action after three weeks. I gather a Council employee visited the tip to deposit his rubbish, saw the posters, and fainting with shock ran to his boss who rang the contractor and issued the order, plus I gather a £50 fine. My instinct was to offer the pay the fine, but that would be electoral corruption. Local elections are every jobsworth’s dream.

 

Best wishes,

 

Howard