Letter to Roger Greene at WDDC. re; the rejected petition

Dear Mr Greene

(Legal Services Manager, Head of Property & Litigation and Monitoring Officer, WDDC)

RE ADVEARSE PETITION

Thank you for your letter of 22 January which gave your response to the decision of the Chief Executive to refuse to accept our petition. ADVEARSE has considered its response and I am replying on behalf of the group.

We are disappointed that you have failed to give any detailed consideration to the protocol concerning petitions to the Full Council. Most of the letter consists of the list of consultation activities which must have taken at least 2 minutes to copy and paste. We have already received this information on several occasions. We have explained that whilst it might persuade you and colleagues that consultation has been carried out that Bridport Councillors and residents feel that there were failures in the information and consultations process.

We would accept that the Councillors were unlikely to have accepted the demand of the petition and withdrawn Vearse Farm from the Local Plan. This would be especially true granted the particular stage we are at in terms of the Inspection process. We did however wish to achieve two objectives

  • Ensuring that Councillors as a whole appreciated the strength of opposition to the proposal
  • Ensuring that the public could actually hear an open debate on the issue.

The latter point is paramount. The local press is giving unprecedented coverage to concerns in the community as a whole about West Dorset District as a Council. In particular it is about the sense that ‘cabinet ‘government is not serving local democracy well.

We have collected names and asked for the debate in accordance with the protocol. What would actually have been wrong in actually having the debate and giving the reason for rejecting its request the points which Matt Prosser and you have given? You have given reasons why the Councillors would reject the request but not why the petition should not have been heard. In my initial response to Matt Prosser I suggested that it was bad politics to reject the petition. Weeks on with yet more negative publicity about a high handed council that remains my view. We will certainly be issuing a press release about the matter.

‘Chief Executives decision’- (page one). We note that no councillors were asked for their opinion. Might it have been useful to get their perspective ? Or outside the cabinet members are Councillors to be treated as stooges?

Conclusion of stage III – Thank you for clarifying that we are at the conclusion and pointing us in the direction of the ombudsman. For the record can we note that despite offers on our behalf for other avenues the Council has chosen to deal with us exclusively by e-mail/letter?

To confirm our next actions

  • We will be issuing a press release about the rejection
  • We will be contacting the Ombudsman
  • We will be asking our local councillors for support and guidance
  • We will consider how best to network with others who feel disenfranchised by the undemocratic processes of WDDC

Yours faithfully

ADVEARSE

John Grantham protests on our behalf !

John will be tabling a question on Thursday 8th January (2pm) at South Parks House, Dorchester, challenging the WDDC as to why they have disqualified two petitions (one of which consisted of 1,400 signatures compiled by ADVEARSE opposing development of Vearse Farm) originally due to be presented on that date.

Note; I have recently been on holiday thus no website correspondence of late !

The youth of today !

Josh Kelly replied to your comment on Future Bridport‘s photo.
Josh wrote: “All our homes have been built where badgers once lived. We extract oil and burn fossil fuel, we rip up woodlands for plantations. But of course, not many people see this. They see a petrol station and bananas on the shelves… let’s not start worrying about the badgers and birds now. Traffic – well, would everyone be on the road at once? If all of a sudden 1000 cars pulled out at once… there would be slight delays. But my argument is simple, wake up 10 minutes earlier and leave 10 minutes earlier. Also on a top level, there are too many old drivers in this town who are a major hazard. Stricter ruling on driving after 70 is required. That would take a load of the traffic off the roads of Bridport. Also, lets build a cycle path from Vearse, through Skilling and Plottingham to gain access to town. You all seem to think this has never been done before. But it has in areas where there are more restrictions but they have managed it. I know people who live within 1 mile of the town centre and drive there! Fair enough if you are needing heavy items, but going to the post office shouldn’t warrant that. I would hope young people who are fit an healthy snap these homes up and walk into town. So looking at traffic, a lot will be sorted if people weren’t so lazy and perhaps altered there routine slightly to cope with it. So as a community we can solve traffic easily”

WDDC cancel petition submission; Vearse Farm !!

ADVEARSE have just received a letter from Matt Prosser, Chief Executive at the WDDC. It details in part that……

“…..In conclusion therefore, the petition will not be discussed by the full Council [on the 8th January, 2015]as the matter raised is one that has already been able to go through a separate investigation process through the public examination into the whole plan. The inspector will consider all of the evidence thoroughly before reaching his conclusions on whether the plan is sound.

The full text can be supplied if requested.

ADVEARSE will be contacting the local media to convey their dissatisfaction on this infringement of the democratic process.

BBC News South; Bridport development plans revealed as part of local plan

Sketches of a development plan proposed for an area of outstanding natural beauty have been released.

Hallam Land Management submitted the designs as part of discussions surrounding a local plan for West Dorset, Weymouth and Portland.

The plans show drawings for a development of up to 760 new homes to the west of Bridport at Vearse Farm.

A campaign group, Advearse, has collected thousands of signatures opposing the idea.

See link….

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-30391617

 

Campaign Site