Forum Topic

Disappointing night for Island Triangle

Last night the Ealing planning committee decided not to decide on the Clean Power Properties application to build a waste processing plant on land to the west of this community at the top of Old Oak Lane.  Just about every word said by the planning councillors was negative but the chairman of the committee managed to steer them to defer the decision.  Instead of the chairman waiting for the committee to vote and then only using his vote in the event of a stalemate his hand shot straight up in favour of deferral.  The final vote was 7 for deferral and 6 against.  Now that the decision has been deferred there is the risk that the developer and the council officers will address any areas of uncertainty raised at the meeting and leave the next planning committee with little option but to allow the application.  It seems to me that this was an easy decision to make.  This area already carries a heavy burden of pollution from Powerday and road traffic and however well the new facility is designed it can only add to that burden.  It is a shame that the planning committee didn’t make it.  There have been too many of these deferrals recently on planning. 

Phil Taylor ● 4780d2 Comments

This shows that perhaps behind the scenes all is not well between Council Officers in the Planning Department and the elected Councillors.........were you at the meeting?  Did you detect anything in the body language?

dee cook ● 4779d

Dee,I was there.  The "relationship" is stand offish - it has to be.  The councillors sit in a quasi-judicial role to decide on the evidence and recommendations presented to them by the planning officers.  Obviously the chairman works with the planners on the mechanics of the meeting but the planning councillors don't have much to do with the officers unless they maybe ask a question about a particular issue.  In this case the officers recommended that the permission be granted.  The committee deferred.  This has happened too often lately in controversial cases. Ultimately you never have enough information.  You have to go on the basis of what is in front of you otherwise the system gets clogged up.  It might be appropriate to defer now and then to make a point to planning officers about the quality of their work.  In this case the planning committee just bottled out of making a decision in my view.

Phil Taylor ● 4779d