Gollop: why I resigned...

I generally agree with the opinion piece, especially as a sensible analysis of the current situation and predicament, but disagree with some of the article’s conclusions. We miss Deputy Lester Queripel’s insightful and independent viewpoints on the committee and concur the DPA faces a tough year ahead, perhaps indeed too tough for me after 22 continuous service years in the Assembly. Indeed I have seen eight other Planning presidents come and go, with sadly two no longer alive in this world.

The editorial asserts that this is a committee that has lost its way because it no longer knows what it is for. That may be true personally for me at the moment but is not true as regards the excellent professional officer staff team and the success of the Island Development Plan generally. The relevant professions have generally found it easier than its predecessors; the number of planning appeals to the statutory panel has reduced and the DPA advice and decisions are generally upheld. Planning income has been up, our budget has improved, and there have been more applications over the previous year.

The DPA has not lost its way.

End of story.

However, the editorial is on firmer ground if it means the role of the decision-making political board. There the problems begin. I agree entirely that me as the president and the four other politicians are ‘caught between planning laws, the superior knowledge of the professional staff and long- standing States decisions’ (indeed going back at least two Assemblies ago with the Strategic Land Use Plan etc.).

I have personally found the ambiguity of the role an impossible circle to square. We are chosen as a political board, generally deputies, but are expected, under sound legal advice and guidance, to act as a quasi-judicial body upholding for consistency law and policy with regard to principles of equality and precedent. So if I as an elected representative want to uphold a manifesto pledge, decide something on political, economic, environmental or parish cohesion grounds, I am acting, maybe, ultra vires. Moreover a ‘rogue’ decision at an open planning meeting by a majority of members against professional advice, policy and law that is inconsistent with the unanimously agreed plan by this House is very likely to be overturned by the Planning Appeals Tribunal panel of selected experts. These dignitaries have weeks to explore evidence and make a considered decision and start from the application itself, not a reasonableness position. Therefore it could be seen as a waste of time and taxpayers’ money to unrealistically set expectations high by holding frequent numbers of open planning meetings.

To put it simply, the DPA committee no longer effectively has the last word on planning applications. Most are delegated and all refusals can be appealed; I am not and was not a minister of planning.

We have approved and reconsidered several times the criteria for holding open planning meetings. If I could run the committee by myself with ministerial-type powers I would probably hold such meetings monthly with several items on the agenda, Jersey-style. And I would idiosyncratically make all kinds of departures from policy... but they would be appealed and I would lose.

The current compromise the committee has inherited from the Environment Department era, when that board under three ministers held open planning meetings, is the situation where a very tiny fraction of contentious high profile and finely balanced decisions are played out in public with opportunities for transparency, accountability and representations, often from other deputies and douzaine representatives.

To be honest, this is bizarre. For six years the Environment Department doubled up as the Planning Authority committee, of which I was a member. Now under our interesting constitution, Environment members are not even allowed to be eligible to sit on our board, further restricting membership, an embargo which also applies to Policy & Resources members – especially those from St Sampson’s. You couldn’t make it up (not a DPA decision).

But the reality is we have approved a policy-based professional approach to planning after much public consultation and political deliberation, debate and amendments aplenty, some of which were curious to interpret, but we still retain as a backstop the occasional spectacle of five ‘well-meaning amateurs’ being arguably ineffective.

I would dispute that criticism incidentally as our board contains builders, an experienced lawyer and a professional surveyor. I have sat in committees with a planning function for 12 years. But I don’t pretend to be a professional planner, planning barrister, architect or consultant. But I do claim over 20 years of political instinct of what the public wants and needs.

The suggestion that DPA members should stand aside and allow the creation of a professional panel with a lay chairman which can interpret planning laws with confidence, albeit with an expensive price ticket (dearer than us deputies), is an interesting one; some leading figures in our commercial sector want to see politicians move out of planning decisions and some deputies are of that opinion.

But consider the downsides. The model of an erudite adjudication panel is already there. The planning panel who meet several times per year and trump the political decisions. Remember Les Blanches? And the noise from douzaines and States members and the vociferous public is all the other way. They want some political involvement to protect green fields, show concern for country lanes and neighbourhood interests. The public appear to want grandstanding politicians working for the people against entrepreneurs, developers and persons extending their curtilage into apparently idyllic, needed farmland. The final exile of elected representatives from planning will be a bitter pill to swallow.

The other argument that the IDP and by extension the DPA is failing to protect greenfield sites is political populism at its most green and ripe. Members who didn’t do their homework and voted for the new scheme and plan, creating reasonable expectations amongst landowners and other stakeholders, are demanding a complete U-turn, and not even from the floor of the chamber but from the DPA itself, with even me at the helm.

Well like the Dragons’ Den panel, I am out of that deal. Personally if I had perhaps a more pragmatic and united committee and infinite staff resources and budgets, I would have muddled along making a few maverick decisions here and there to appear local, ecological feeling and protect to a greater extent certain specific habitats, especially in areas where green lungs are becoming a luxury. I might be giving false hope given the complexity of modern law, policy judicial reviews and planning appeals.

But with an increasingly vociferous chorus of States members rejecting the planning menu and constitutions they themselves all approved just a few moons ago, and myself as a leader trying to balance law, policy, credibility, consistency and other issues against my own personal convictions and opinions on occasion, I feel it is time to stand down and let someone else bravely seek the limelight and mental health strains. I have more than enough to do with social security work, disability legislation and encouraging economic development.

DEPUTY JOHN GOLLOP

28, Rosaire Court,

St Peter Port.