FanDanGo…

Some good news for a change. Regular readers will remember Dan Badham, our local tree surgeon who applied for OPD 16 months ago. Today, after a committee meeting at County Hall he was unanimously granted permission to go ahead with his project. I watched the meeting online and was struck by a number of things.

A couple of the elected planning committee seemed to have no idea what OPD is or how it works. Am I mistaken in assuming they’re supposed to read the agenda prior to the meeting an to familiarise themselves with each case presented, so that they can come to an informed decision? You could tell who had done their homework because they didn’t have to ask any questions.

Some of the questions asked and points raised merely served to demonstrate just how unprepared some of these councillors actually were. One commented on the trees on the site, seemingly upset that they would not be managed properly, whereas if he had passed even a cursory eye over the application he would have known that Mr Badham is a tree surgeon of some local repute. Luckily, Cllr Jacob Williams in the chair had been paying attention, and was cynically able to put the councillor straight. But what if he hadn’t? At the very least, that could well have caused yet another delay in a day of hold ups and difficulties, all seemingly brought on by the fact that not all of the councillors were familiar with any of the cases. I only watched three, including Dan’s. That was enough. But I’ve watch many of these planning meetings, and it’s always the same.

Another couple of councillors seemed extremely upset that even though the usual OPD application is all tin and turf rooves, that this application actually looked like a house. I was lost at this point. Sorry, But did you mean you prefer the tin and turf? Would you have preferred a hobbit house application? He began the sentence like he was going to say one thing, and ended up saying completely the opposite.

If I was a planning officer, my first though would have been, why can’t the applicant just have normal planning permission, due to the fact that his site is clearly within the village boundary, as demonstrated on the ariel view photographs? There’s a whole village right next door, a farm to the North, and a girt caravan site over the road. Sorry, but why was this case complicated?

One thing I noticed during proceedings, was that the site visit was undertaken at the beginning of the process. A letter was sent to Dan asking for permission to access the site. The photos that appeared at the meeting however, were clearly taken a good few months after that. No permission was requested for this visit. But they’d obviously climbed the gate to take their photos…

The time taken was also justified by the fact that OPD applications by their very nature are complicated. However, the committee also hear a case about a housing estate in Stepaside, which presumably was sorted within the allocated eight weeks? Why is Dan’s very excellent management plan more complicated than a site where work has already started and flooded the adjacent area, with mains services involved, school crossing issues, flooding issues and all the other problems associated with such an application?

Is that really an eight week job, whereas a single dwelling is deemed complicated enough to take a year and a third? Interestingly, the planning officer had recommended that housing development for approval, notwithstanding naughty behaviour by the developer who seems to have cause all sorts of environmental and social problems. After that, a caravan with a hot tub, concreted down and made permanent, and applied for retrospectively for holiday use was also recommended for approval, whereas my OPD was refused. Interesting.

The One Planet Council run courses for council employees and many Local Authorities have taken advantage of this. But not Pe,brokeshire. Why not? Why use the excuse that OPD is complicated when you’ve got the chance to go and learn about it but you decline?

One councillor questioned whether the constant practice of going over time with decisions for OPD was showing PCC in a bad light, to which Mr Popperwell replied that extension requests are made and so they don’t get into trouble. That’s not actually true. Extension requests have consistently been requested late; way after the time they were supposed to be requested. In many cases, months after. Nearly every OPD in the system over the last year has had this problem. I had this problem and so did Dan. On my second application an extension request wasn’t made at all.

Next week, the 18^th March at 10am in Maenclochog community hall, is my appeal. It’s looking to be quite fun. Lots of people are coming, and everyone is invited. At the moment I’m not freaking out too much. There’s no point worrying about not being successful, because then I’ll have suffered twice. I’m quite surprised how calm I am, although I’ll probably be unable to stand from about tea -time on Tuesday onwards.

If I win, it will be a triumph of common sense over adversity. If I lose, then, well…. we’ll see. I was only this morning told that I won’t get a decision straight away, and it could take up to six weeks. Sigh. Put the kettle on Baldrick….