Public planning meeting rules are set for change
ALDERNEY's planning committee is to continue to hold its meetings in public – with several controversial caveats.
The Building and Development Control Committee staged the last three of its monthly meetings in public, which it says was a great success.
The BDCC said 'lessons had been learned' from the trial which had prompted them to alter the rules around public involvement.
In the July Billet, BDCC chairman Matt Birmingham says that the committee can now defer a decision. This will also enable it to make a decision behind closed doors and then issue a written statement on it.
Examples of where this might happen might be where a decision 'was likely to differ from the planning officer's recommendation' or to be able to reflect on comments submitted if there were a lot of them, or to take advice from third parties.
The new protocol also says that repeat letters from the same person, or verbal representations, 'will be considered as lobbying' and therefore not taken into consideration.
Resident Arthur Wheeler, who is one of a group campaigning against a development near Platte Saline, said having legitimate concerns classed as lobbying was an abuse of power.
He claimed he and others had recently been compelled to make repeated objections on the grounds that that the committee did not have a thorough enough grasp of planning law.
