COUNCIL PERFORMANCE 2

Derby City Council reckons it saved £250,000 by putting its mobile phone bill up for auction, and now everyone else can get financial help to do the same thing. The saving came at the end of a 52-minute auction, conducted electronically, with the eventual winner offering a price around 60% of what the council had expected to spend. It's a result that has prompted the government's procurement arm to offer financial support to other public bodies tempted down the auction route.

Buying Solutions generally aggregates orders to drive down prices by buying in bulk, but given the amount that auctions are able to save, the body is now offering financial and logistical support to any public body that fancies putting their contracts on the block. North Yorkshire County Council ran an auction for telephony contracts that saved 29% on its existing spending, and others have run auctions for all sorts of IT hardware as well as furniture and the like. (Source: The Register, Feb/10)

Two sections of a multi-million-pound apartment block under construction on the corner of Darley Lane and Edward Street, encroaches several inches onto public land. The discovery led the council to publish a statutory notice proposing the transfer of about 1.5 square metres of council land to the developer, Wheeldon Brothers, of Prime Parkway. It has incensed local heritage enthusiasts, who claim the council is allowing developers to get away with mistakes for which homeowners would face prosecution and the council was aware of the error a year ago, before any building work had taken place.

Penny Abreu, one of the original objectors to the scheme, said, "What is the point of seeking public objection now? I will certainly be objecting to the transfer of the land. They should be forced to demolish it." Stuart Leslie, the council's assistant director for legal services, said, "The encroachment is so minimal that it's possible it wasn't picked up from the original plans. We are still trying to get to the bottom of it." Mr Leslie said the encroachment actually benefited the highway by effectively straightening a kink in the pavement in Darley Lane. He added, "The builders have been told they are proceeding at their own risk. People are still entitled to object."

Any objections raised by the public will be considered by Derby magistrates, who could order the developer to demolish sections of the building that encroach on public land but the council does not believe this situation is likely though. Mr Leslie said there was no plan to charge the developer for the land, but said Wheeldon would be covering the council's legal costs. Richard Butler, the chairman of Derby Heart, said, "It's appalling. Someone has built on public land and the council seems to be bending over backwards to accommodate the error." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

The developer states he has been awaiting a planning decision since 2002. Derby City Council replies that it is awaiting a planning decision on Connecting Derby before making a decision on the Friargate development. As usual, the city council does everything backwards so as to move forward in the wrong direction! Surely, the traffic in and out of this large Friargate development will have a substantial effect upon traffic flows around the proposed new section of inner ring road?

So why not take this into account at the road design stage? The answer could be that this horrendous new road is presented to local residents on the premise (and promise!) that it is designed to take only existing traffic levels into account (despite the imminent Riverlights, Eagle Centre, Cityscape and Friargate schemes!) Residents are therefore deluded that the disastrous effect this road will have on the residential neighbourhood of Abbey Street will be minimal.

So, taking the Friargate scheme into account would spoil its figures and require an increase in the pollution levels that must be given in the environmental statement that it is legally obliged to produce on the effects of introducing this unwanted new road. To avoid this embarrassment, all they need to do is to delay the planning approval for Friargate until after the Connecting Derby scheme is put forward for approval. Then the city council can ignore it completely and escape any legal obligation to increase the pollution level figures in the Connecting Derby environmental statement. Chris Woodward

Firefighters were called to the derelict grade II-listed bonded warehouse off Friargate, after two fires were started inside. Clowes Investment, the Brailsford-based developer which owns the three-storey building, claims the blaze would never have happened if the city council had approved ambitious plans to regenerate the rundown former Friargate station site.

Mark Leach, senior management planner at Clowes, said, "Obviously, we're very concerned that people are trespassing on our property and causing damage to a listed building." He added, "We submitted a planning application to redevelop the property in December 2002. Since then we've not received a decision and we're very frustrated. It concerns us because this site is perfect for an exciting, inner city development."

A spokesman for the city council said that a decision had not yet been made on the plans because parts of the site fell within the boundaries of the Connecting Derby transport scheme, which aims to complete the inner ring-road. He said, "The Connecting Derby scheme will go to the planning board in due course, probably during the autumn and then it will be referred to the Secretary of State. So we cannot really determine Clowes' plans until that issue is resolved."

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