Issue - meetings

To receive petitions, comments and questions from the public.

Ms. Cottier, Ms. Peers and Mr. Cook gave verbal presentations to the Cabinet.

Audio recording – 8:10

The Chair invited Ms. Carolyn Cottier to address the Committee.

Ms. Cottier thanked the Chair for the opportunity to address the Committee and gave a verbal presentation related to item 8 Strategic Planning Matters, this included:

·         This information is urgent and must be relayed no later than the 21^st June 2022, since it affects tonight’s agenda;

·         Findings related to the missing representations from the Local Plan Examination in Public, wherein hundreds of Regulation 19 participants submissions were discovered to have been lost;

·         An audit has been conducted on 2750 individual participant responses;

·         The latest still missing status stands at 475 lost documents;

·         The Inspectors Final Draft Report for the Local Plan Examination has been released. ED243 on the website;

·         ED243 was dated the 6^th of June 2022, but was only published after an unfair delay. The 10^th of June was when it was first publicly disclosed;

·         The Department of Levelling Up’s Quality Assurance team would need to guarantee legal compliance; meaning all participatory submissions must be fully present at the time;

·         The breakdown of the missing evidence by area is: 195 against East of Luton sites, 113 Breachwood Green KW1 sites, 20 against Codicote, 33 Knebworth, 20 Baldock, 8 Barkway and 56 missing from a range of other areas.

The Chair invited Ms. Cheryl Peers to address the Committee.

Ms. Peers thanked the Chair for the opportunity to address the Committee and gave a verbal presentation related to item 8 Strategic Planning Matters, which included:

·         3 representations sent via email in response to the Further Main Modifications Consultation held in May to July 2021 remain actively obstructed;

·         A senior planning officer has claimed they are solely responsible;

·         Ms. Peers read out an email exchange between a member of public and the senior planning officer;

·         The obstruction of these 3 representations was established due to an improvised and unauthorised decision.

The Chair then invited Mr. David Cook to address the Committee.

Mr. Cook thanked the Chair for the opportunity to address the Committee and gave a verbal presentation related to item 9 Conservation Area Reviews, which included:

·         Wanted to speak on the Ashwell Conservation Area and not on specific recommendations;

·         The reasons for recommendations provided in the agenda pack on item 9 are ‘to appropriately assess conservation areas’

·         The recommendations were fed by a Consultant’s report which was fed by Ashwell Parish Council’s submissions and suggestions;

·         Sharing extracts from a Freedom of Information request which have been obtained to seek transparency on the process that went into the Parish Council’s submission;

·         The Parish Council’s Chair and Vice-Chairman set up and sat on a working group to consider these matters, then as Chair and VC they endorsed their own actions and sent the findings to North Herts Council’s consultant;

·         Mr. Cook then read extracts from emails he had received from the Freedom of Information request;

·         Some of the areas included in the Parish Council’s submission did not have sound reasons for doing so.