UK Policy Makers: Glaring Examples of the Worst Outlaws - Case Study Example

"UK Policy Makers"- Glaring examples of the Worst Outlaws Dear Editor, I write on behalf of the real e proprietors and developers of UK. Theneed of the time is to bring to the notice of general public and authorities that corruption in UK at Governmental level has increased to the extent that there are no policies, rules, regulations & standards that they would adhere to or abide. Abuse of power, contradicting own statements & corruption seem like the unsaid virtues of this century for the planning officers. In this whole fiasco, councilors play the role of puppet masters and the rest of the employees of the planning department are like puppets not only dancing attendance to the councilor's wishes but going out of the way to lease him. It is surprising why they do not ask themselves the crucial question" who are we working for and whose interest are we serving The answer would surely not be the councilor but the organization. The planning department was formed with the clear objective of providing a medium and a platform whereby the government officials could work in harmony with the developers and come forward with solutions on how to develop property in future, how to grant licenses and facilitating the developers with other such legal matters. However, the current stance of the officials of the planning development is full of negativity and they seek reasons to reject any and all applications irrespective of their compliance or non-compliance with the policies. The councilor himself seems to have no stringent code of conduct whereby he has indulged five times in lobbying and trying to influence the planning officer into declining my application for development. If this might be vague in convincing one of his intentions, he even appointed a temporary planning officer, to cover for Mr. F in his short absence from work, who more than stood up to the expectations of his boss and indulged in racism, negligence and lying , all witnessed by two witnesses with written statements. The head planning officer in the borough, Mr. W, can be termed as the mastermind behind all this and has given out false information, broken rules and been negligent. In the following statements, please take note of the offences inflicted by Mr. W, the planning development control committee and the Councilor to me, in my capacity as a developer in UK requesting for planning permission: 1. Abuse of Power/Invasion of Privacy: The leave of Mr. F, my case officer and also the person who had recommended my application for approval, was en-cashed and made use of to suit their own ends and Mr. S. was ordered by Mr. W to take over Mr. F's responsibilities in his absence. Eager to please his boss, Mr. S wrote an appeal to refuse the application and to visit the site without prior notice. The question to be asked at this point in time is: Is a temporary planning officer, working as a temporary replacement only, entitled to such authority that he can contradict another officer's recommendation and write an appeal for the rejection of a case The second question that comes to mind is, why was I, being a proprietor and having complete ownership rights of it, not informed prior to conducting such a site visit The second offence is linked to this unannounced "Site Visit". 2. Breaking of statutory laws: Mr. S, or for that matter any planning officer in his place, is bound by law to issue a notification to the owner 24-48 hours before the site visit. 3. Entering Private Property under false pretences: Mr. S. lied to my tenants about the purpose of their visit and entered the site by mis-informing them : -They had my permission to visit the site -They were working in my interest 4. Racial Profiling: Mr. S on his site visit, disclosed personal information to my tenants in order to get friendly with them to take out information from them about me. Racial discrimination or profiling at any level is not encouraged much less from personnel bearing the Government assigned designations. The question to be asked at this level is, In effect is racial profiling and discrimination allowed in the unsaid code of conduct of the UK government 5.Addtion to reasons of Refusal; It seems like Mr. S went all the way to prove his worth to the committee by adding on and making suggestions as to what other reasons could be against the sanctioning of this application .These suggestions included those which were never in the first instance a cause of objection. 6. The grounds of Refusal: It is by virtue of common sense that the refusal of any application or case is supported and based on existing policies. My application on was previously recommended by the planning officer Mr. F. However, after the appeal of Mr. S, it was rejected on grounds that "a loss of house would be Detrimental". It can be argued at this point in time that if such policies existed, Mr. F, being a responsible officer, would have known about them and would never have recommended my case for approval. The conclusion derived here is that such policies do not exist in the jurisdiction of the planning department or the government planning legislations themselves. In absence of such written legislation, I stand to question the grounds on which my application was rejected. 7. The Unitary Development Plan (UDP). The government rules and regulations state that any planning department officer, who wishes to send a statement to an inspector, must clearly and solely base it on the relevant policies of the councils UDP. Mr. S, on the contrary, went two steps further and introduced new objections to the proposal and referred to policies and procedure that do not even exist!. From the above analysis of my case and proceedings, I can conclude the following: Mr. S was appointed with an agenda to influence, strive and make efforts to get this application rejected. Mr. S was a temporary, replacement officer and was acting on someone's instructions. It can be Mr. W, the head planning officer, who in turn might be acting on the councilor's wishes himself. It seems that the appeal report was aimed at "rephrasing" facts with the intent of "destroying" the original meaning and in effect making the original recommendation by Mr. F. render void. In the following table, I have provided references of the same situation by the two officers Mr. F & Mr. S, side by side, in order to make it clear to the readers how my application process is being jeopardized in a calculated and planned way. Mr. F Planning Officers Report Mr. S Appeal Report 1.5 The same, plus - This Road and other surrounding road have been subject to more recent as previous higher density residential developments which vary in scale, appearance and layout and it is considered that the flatted developments are an overriding characteristic of the road. There are however some examples in the immediate locality of detached dwellings which remain in single family occupation, although these are greatly in the minority. 1.2 The surrounding are can be described as predominantly residential with a diversity of building styles. 5.11 - The proposed scheme would have a density of approx 89 dwellings per hectare and 269 habitable rooms. It is considered that these figures are not excessive for this part of the borough. 5.5 The proposal would result in a housing density of some 90 dwellings per hectare, it goes on to say Accordingly the site location is not considered appropriate for higher density developments and as such 90 dwellings per hectare is considered excessive and an overdevelopment of the site 5.6 There has been an objection to the loss of the existing family house. However our borough's unitary development plan does not have any particular policies relating to the retention of single family dwellings. Disregarding this, the proposal would provide additional much needed accommodation in a relatively sustainable location. 5.5 Moreover, the loss of a single family dwelling would be detriment to the existing mix of residential properties in the surrounding area 5.19 It could be considered that the proposal represents a scale of the development compatible with the overall scale of building in the locality. The acceptability of the proposed scale of development should not only be compared directly with the 2 neighbouring properties dwellings, but also within the wider street scene. .5.20 It is therefore considered that the proposed building, in terms of scale, would be appropriately integrated into the immediate and wider street scene and would make a positive contribution to the existing townscape. In terms of mass impact and height, avoiding sharp contrasts in scale, building form, materials and style 5.6 The appeal property is situated between two single family dwelling houses. The proposal would result in a property of considerable bulk and mass in relation to neighbouring properties and would fail to relate satisfactorily with it surroundings. 5.30 - it should be noted that the garden of the neighbouring property is not completely private at present as it is directly overlooked from the adjacent flatted development adjoining it by virtue of flank facing windows The property is partially overlooked by the more comprehensive flatted development at the rear of the site is known as spring well manor. The proposed development is not considered to unreasonably exacerbate any existing overlooking as the referred windows in the proposed rear elevation which would serve bedrooms. Such rooms are less frequently used then other habitable room such as lounges, which in this instance would be located to the front of the property. Details of landscaping would be sought through condition and this should include details of boundary landscaping and treatment which could contribute towards screening between these adjacent sites 5.31 The neighbouring property have objected to the proposal on the grounds that the proposed dwelling would restrict sunlight into 9 flank windows facing the application site. These windows however are north facings and therefore do not currently benefit from direct sunlight and upon investigation it is found that these windows are not primary windows to habitable rooms. 5.33 All flank windows in the proposed development will be conditioned to be permanently fixed shut with obscured glass to avoid any direct overlooking and loss of adjacent residential privacy. 5.7 The proposed building would have windows in both south and north flank elevation. This would be particularly detrimental to the privacy enjoyed by the occupiers of the neighbours to the south. This property has windows to habitable rooms on the ground floor of the elevation facing the appeal site, which would be vulnerable to increase overlooking. When seen from the rear gardens of neighbouring properties, the proposed building would seem dominant and overbearing and would result in loss of the amenities of neighbouring residents. The proposal is thus considered unacceptable From the above side by side reference, it can be seen that Mr. S is neither as incompetent as portrayed nor negligent. He seems to have enough expertise to expedite the orders of his superiors and surely the Appeal Report could not have been forwarded without Mr. W's consent. This brings me to the crucial question. Is Mr. W solely responsible for this deliberate act of misconstruing meanings of the original report and drafting the appeal report or is it some one else or a whole lobby of councilors behind it In quest for my answer to the above question, I carried out further investigation and found out that of the 22 cases that were recommended for approval by the planning officer, less than half were moved ahead. The rest were rejected in the same way whereby the council decided to take a u-turn on the recommending officer's report and the cases were appealed and eventually rejected or moving towards the same end. From this it can be inferred that even though Mr. S and Mr. W are to be blamed for this, but in essence, they werejust6 performing the orders assigned to them by their superiors. In case of Mr. W, the key influencer to his decision making is the planning & development council itself. For the benefit of my readers, at this point in time, I would like to discuss the structure and organization of the council itself. The council is made of councilors whose role is to debate, object or recommend an application for approval once it has been passed onto the committee. The committee there onwards has the authority to take a unanimous decision. However, in my case, the process seems to be working backward whereby Councilor S is contacting Mr. W, Appointing Mr. S in Absence of Mr. F, Mr. F's decision making is being hindered by him. I stand to question, that when in the jurisdiction of the Councilors Code of Conduct, they are not allowed to "lobby" against any case , why is Councilor S going out of his way to get my application rejected. There can be several reasons I can come up with: Is it racial discrimination Is it personal objectives If so, does he want a commission in the deal or were the other cases that have been approved, more profitable for him in any way Is it political interest Discussing the last concern in detail, it can be seen from the voting patterns of the committee that it can never come to a unanimous decision. Thus the decision is based on the interests of the political party rather than then the relevancy of the application in itself. The majority of the members of the committee belong to two parties. If the councilors of one party are for a case, the other party is expected to vote against it. Due to this, a unanimous decision can never be reached. The loss bearers of this situation are the property developers and the people seeking accommodation. From this it can be observed that the committee lacks individuality and their planning process is biased in favor of their parties' political interest rather than the interest of the planning and development committee. This is more evident in case of Councilor S This also explains why Mr. S has contacted Mr. W, Mr. F and appointed Mr. S. in my case. It also explains why Mr. S is lobbying against my case as being a politician; it is his job to lobby the interests of his party. From this whole scenario, It can be seen that the Planning and Development Council at present is a fiasco organization where all the officers, inspectors and councilors are "doing their jobs right' by pleasing their immediate bosses. Eventually, all evidence points towards not an individual but a system which is corrupt and highly politicized. This politicizing of every matter has permeated to the levels where it is getting more & more difficult for Small and medium Size developers to operate. Mr. F, who is not only my case officer, but also believes that my case complies with set standards, is the only responsible officer in this whole department. I wrote to him on his return from vacations, only to receive the following response: "It was told standard and procedure protocol for the planning officers to justify the development controls committee decision regardless if they believe it accords to justify the relevant development planning policies" Later, when I confirmed from Mr. F, he was oblivious bout it and said that Mr. S might have written it in his absence and he did not write nay such thing. However, apart from the statement, M F also believes that even though he thinks that the application is in conformance with set rules and regulations, even then it is the standard protocol and to take this route and ask for the application to be refused. At this point in time, I would like to ask why there is not a point based web application system like in case of HSMP, where applicants can go and plug in their statistics and find out themselves whether their development complies or not. The second query is that such situations arise only when there is plenty of grey area to use as a "cover". I want to ask the Government and the higher authorities, why standard protocol, If any exists, has not been legalized and put into writing and included in their Standards, policies, & regulations framework. Another issue that I have is why isn't there complete harmony on the objections that the inspector had and the objections that the committee has In my case, the objections made by the planning inspector were different and completely new as compared to the objections made by the planning committee. The circular of the planning Department states that the planning officers, if they want to send any statements to the planning inspector, must base it entirely on the reasons why the application was rejected originally. In my case, the appeal carried new objections, not initially a part of the reasons the committee gave for objection. I want to know why such a deviation from norms and regulations occurred. The Smaller, Amended Application: A smaller, amended application was prepared to be recommended for approval after four months. I contacted Mr. F to follow up on the stats of my application. However, I was informed that he was unable to forward his application since his decision making process was being hindered by Councilor S, who has contacted him and Mr. W over five times with concerns over my applications. I enquired about what concerns Councilor S has and received an evasive answer that he was not sure of what exactly his objections were. On the other hand, Councilor S never put anything into writing, which they are required through procedural standards due to which Mr. F was unable to forward the application. This is a clear sign of mis-use & abuse of authority and power being used to gain preferential treatment. To further find out exactly what was bothering Councilor S, I decided to contact him. He said that he has contacted Mr. F and Mr. W on a number of occasions and it is up to him whoever he decides to contact. He did not recall my application as he has five other applications in mind that he was objecting to. According to him, he was protecting his constitutes by lobbying against the developers and all flatted/apartment planning applications in this area. "Protection of Constitutes", is an interesting terminology to use especially coming from a councilor who has forwarded his own planning application to demolish his own house two years ago to replace it with flats, apparently two and a half times the size of my development. His application was refused, and he appealed it to the planning inspector, which was again refused and he adamantly applied the third time! I wonder where the protection of constitute ideology went to at that point in time or was it blinded by self interest. It is worth mentioning that Counselor S's property is within 0.20 of a mile from my development site. He was even quoted in a humiliating newspaper article (available) stating that he has every right to develop his property for a sensitive flatted development and sell it for a profit. Considering all the details of my case above, once my solicitors letters was sent in regards to the de-delegation outside of the 21st Statutory law deadline for my other application and six other application complaints, the planning department decided quickly to recommend the planning application and have placed it on the next planning committees meeting agenda which we are awaiting the outcome within the next week. It is expected that once again, these applications will be rejected. I am convinced that my application is a strong case. The case for allowing apartment/flat complex development in residential area is supported by the following: i. the street is already developed having predominantly flatted/Apartment structures ii. The previous application has been recommended for approval by a responsible case officer iii. 5.11 the proposed scheme would have a density of approx 89 dwellings per hectare and 269 habitable rooms .It is considered that these figures are not excessive for this part of the borough. iv. 5.19&5.20 he proposed building would be appropriately integrated into the wider street scene and in terms of mass impact and height would contribute positively to the existing landscape. v. Privacy: (5.30) it should be noted that the garden of the neighboring property is already being overlooked by surrounding apartments .The proposed development is not considered to be an invasion of privacy since the referred windows are in the rear elevation of the house and overlook the less habitable rooms of the house. vi. All flank windows will be conditioned to be permanently fixed shut with obscured glass to avoid direct overlooking and invasion of privacy. vii. The Councilors application to demolish his house and construct and apartment/flat complex that is 2.5 times the size of my proposed development. His site and my proposed sit are less than 0.20 miles apart and in essence comprise the same constitutes. viii. Essentially, since the appeal was forwarded earlier, it can be concluded that the development is in compliance with their standards. ix. A dire need for cheaper accommodation exists in this locality. In the end , I would like to question the council why it is not humiliating for them to take a U-turn on their planning officers recommendation and then recommending it again, by referring to the original report, and then once again repeating the process of recommending, appealing to the planning inspector and getting it rejected at the committee meeting. The referral of the application for approval means that it complies with rules & regulations. How many rules will the council violate to please their councilors and show utter disregard to the government planning rules and regulations Why are our councilors bending and breaking rules What ends do they want to achieve Why did Mr. W allow such a flawed and incorrect statement to be sent to the planning inspectorate asking the application to be refused and once again after 2 months, he believes the site is in conformance with standards and can be developed The planning process in this borough is a joke and the councilors act like outlaws with no laws to follow. The complete system currently is operating in such a way that if the councilors demand the planning officers to jump, the puppet officers can not jump higher to please them. In order to do this, they violate and disregard any rules & regulations set by government. As stated in Case 1, the housing shortage and the rate of house building is the lowest the UK has seen since the 1970's , with a huge population increase that UK has experienced in the last century. The government should have tougher laws to prevent this happening and the media must try and put an end to these corrupt councilors and amateur planning officers rule breaking. The planning department and officers are not doing there jobs instructed to them to do by government legislation, instead of trying to work with developers and granting planning permissions and increasing the great shortage of housing within London, they are manipulating the system and try and find reasons to refuse applications to please there councilors and at any cost for the developer. Clearly the planning system within this borough is corrupt and negligent, the people in the highest positions are abusing there powers and must be put to a stop, this doesn't just affect developers it affects normal people who cannot get on the property ladder due to the lack of shortage of housing and the reason prices are extortionate due to the lack of supply and thee high demand. This affects parents, that cannot help there children by there 1st property and why so many people are moving 100's of miles to cheaper locations and even abroad, most people cannot get on the property ladder in this country until there late 30's, where our parents were settling into there 1st homes in there 20's No doubt the people who are preventing housing and breaking the rules are the people with double standards who more then likely have there properties paid as they were purchased when the UK housing prices were reasonable for them in the 70's and 80's at the younger generations expense. Most of the outlaws I am referring to in my letters are in there 50's so clearly very settled and trying to prevent much needed change, they disregards the constitutes but then ask them to elect them by promising to giving them a better life. It is evident these councilors prevent planning for there own selfish reasons, ignoring the government and there own planning officers recommendations. But these are the same people then complain when young British people are leaving our shores to be replaced by the much needed labour and skilled force from the European union. The UK's corrupt planning system has far big consequences then just for the developer but for diminishing community and younger generation of people. Read More