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Wiltshire Council news from Ernie Clark.
Your Independent councillor for Hilperton.
The Local Governance Review public consultation will commence this month. Only a small part of Hilperton civil parish, those who might be effected, will be contacted.
The two month closure of Church Street to all through traffic has been postponed until the summer. Assuming that the Hilperton Relief Road (HRR) is open by then, it will be a good way to show any ‘rat running’ traffic, still using the village, that the HRR is a much better way to get where they want to go.
I am still waiting for information as to when the consultation on the HRR speed limit will commence. The issue of the zebra crossings is now getting evermore obfuscated by WC as shown by the following:-
Supplementary Question – asked by me at the WC planning committee meeting on 17th December.
‘Accepting that the answer supplied is correct, (that the conditions for the speed limit and crossing were ultra vires) why did WCC Highways Department not raise this issue with WWDC before the conditions for this application were published eight years ago? Furthermore, why did WC Highway officers hold consultations with myself and Cllr. Oldrieve if Highways had predetermined their opinion on this matter?’
Response – circulated nearly a month later on 14/1/15
‘When applications are recommended for approval, reports to planning committee regularly set out a list of suggested conditions that are considered necessary to make the development acceptable.
There are a series of tests set out by the Government and laid down by the Courts which need to be applied to ensure that conditions are legally compliant.
When applications are debated at planning committee, it is often the case that officer recommendations are challenged by Members. This is a perfectly healthy and proper aspect of the decision making process.
It can also be the case that Members insist on the introduction of additional conditions as a by-product of that debate. When given the opportunity and asked for their professional advice, Officers will always advise whether such conditions are legally compliant, however Members have the option to accept or ignore that advice.
The planning permission in question (determined by the then West Wiltshire District Council) is a case where Members were advised that aspects of additional conditions that were introduced “on the night” were not legally compliant (and therefore unenforceable), however that advice was set aside. Although that aspect of the decision is not minuted, officers have a clear recollection of that being the case.
Once it became apparent in the summer of 2014 that there was a clear intention to implement the permission, it was considered appropriate to alert local Members (Cllrs Oldrieve and Clark) to the legal position.
Subsequent meetings were not intended as a consultation – they were to explain why officers considered a number of conditions were fundamentally flawed, sharing the legal background and procedural guidance which set out the tests to be applied.’
All in all, a totally shocking state of affairs courtesy of the WC highways department. But my post on here a day or so back does indeed show that the condition was changed during the course of the planning committee meeting - from which I and Cllr. Oldrieve were excluded.