COUNCIL OPINION

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
 

COUNCIL ARROGANCE
We have a council that has demonstrated repeatedly over the years that it is arrogance incarnate. The city centre is littered with monuments to its folly, follies that we, as council taxpayers, have paid for dearly and repeatedly. We have: a peculiar, waterfall affair in what is now a public convenience desert: a curiously designed, out-of-scale courthouse that looks as though the measurements for the roof were specified in yards whilst the rest of the building used metres: and a hidious car park monstrosity built from shabby, poor-quality bricks that started leaking salt soon after the thing was built.

This last one looks as though it was designed on somebody's last day at work. If it wasn't their last day, it should have been. Not only are we blessed with these and those that are yet to come, but we are to lose assets that we already have, some of which are unique to Derby. Apart from the bus station, which really needs restoring instead of knocking down, we are, it seems, to have the end of a protected, curved terrace knocked down for no reason at all.

It would appear that, with regard to protecting buildings, the council has absolute power, being able to give and take it away as it needs. It seems that Derby is a city that likes to say "Yes" - to anything that uses bars and restaurants as a justification for being built, providing a quick buck for those who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Paul Grosse

BENDING THE RULES
I experience a feeling of great despair and gloom of what the future will bring, whenever decisions on planning matters are made in Derby. This is because the officers and members appear to circumnavigate the rules to push things through. A typical case in point is the Riverlights Project. Right from the beginning, the officers from the council and the developers appear to have had no intention of listening to the public. When I asked questions at the (very poor) exhibition for the new Bus Station, I was sharply rebuked by the Derby City Council officers, quoting, "outline planning permission for the Bus Station has already been given, therefore this exhibition only concerns the Riverlights buildings."

However, the posters on display were full of images of the planned bus station. The original Environmental Impact Assessment tended to totally ignore traffic considerations, the flood assessment and air quality management. We are now less than a week away from the planning meeting and I still do not think the traffic assessment meets the criteria required, particularly given the cumulative effects of Riverlights, Westfield and Connecting Derby. The Air Quality Assessment Report was issued on October 13 and interested parties have 21 days to make known any objections.

But, Derby City Council, in its arrogance, has decided that this will make no difference whatsoever. So, the planning control committee meeting scheduled for October 23 is to go ahead. Several members of the public who requested the officers' report on Riverlights were told it was not ready. It was finally made available to the public on October 16. How then, could this report have been presented to the pre-planning meeting held on October 8? We were then told that it was more or less ready, but bits were being added to it all of the time. If proposed changes have been made to the scheme since the plans were submitted, then these changes should be made available to anyone who objected to the original development.

The way the officers at Derby City Council appear to be conducting themselves is questionable. I believe, that due to the way the council has conducted the whole sorry mess, there may well be grounds for a legal objection once the officers' report has been examined. Because of the comments made by the director on the consequences of pulling out of the agreement, the council should postpone going to planning committee until all the legal wrangling has been sorted out. And because they have biased their own case, the plan should be called in by the Deputy Prime Minister for a fair decision. Tony Dunn

INFECTION
Might I send an urgent plea to the Secretary of State for Health, asking him to send a team of doctors to Derby to investigate a strange illness? It could be water-borne, it might have been added to the food, or it could be carried in the air. This last theory is the most probable because there is a lot of hot air in the area of the hot-spot, County Hall in Matlock and the Council House in Corporation Street, Derby.

I believe that it is a form of mass-infection, one of the main symptoms being to think that all Derby people are simpletons. Now it seems, the residents of this hot-spots are suffering from a grave form of the illness. They lurch from one ridiculous policy to another, reducing our heritage to rubble. The list is too long to log here and they still continue to destroy what was bequeathed to us by our forebears.

All of the buildings and structures would be cherished by other authorities, but no, not in Derby. Month after month, it is relentless. The Sir Peter Hilton Memorial Garden and Korean War Memorial are to be removed and then we had the latest outburst of instability, the proposal, thankfully now dropped, to move the Cenotaph from the Market Place. The reason given for a move? Vandalism.

How can the Cenotaph, in the centre of Derby, where there is 24-hour closed-circuit television coverage, be attacked without challenge? Where are the police? The reason for CCTV was to keep the area under constant surveillance day and night and, if police were needed, they would be contacted by the civilian viewing the screen and they would respond immediately. If you hang a banner outside your own home, asking for help to protect your property and the environment, you will have the full force of the city council down on you.

They will take you to court and criminalise you. There is no shortage of financial resources here. So, please, Secretary of State, send a team of doctors to Derby as soon as possible to find out what is causing this epidemic at the Council House. It must be contained within our borders. It cannot be allowed to spread to Lincoln, York or Chester, or they will knock down cathedrals and the minster so they can have more 24-hour drinking, casinos and takeaways. Alex Devlin