Councillors and Officers, you really must start TALKING!

I am absolutely sick and tired of people in positions of power hiding behind e-mails and then using 1,001 flimsy excuses of why they can’t possibly talk to developers on the phone or in person.

First of all, I want to address our friends the officers at the Council (I really do mean this, I do see you as friends and allies): talking to people, you can actually achieve a lot more and make your life a lot easier. I will give you two short examples from the past week…

A long running saga in the London Borough of Walford*: Legal action is being threatened, a court date has been set, solicitors and barristers are engaged, and the KC has already picked his new Porsche he was going to buy with the fees. A senior officer then facilitated a round-table discussion. Turns out that the Council and the applicant are actually on the same trajectory and there is only a little difference in timing. We discussed the timing issues and agreed a mutually beneficial way forward. The appeal is now cancelled saving both the Council and the applicant a small fortune and the KC will have to cancel his new Porsche (I of course joke, my learned colleagues deserve the odd new Porsche).

Then there is the story of Two Streams District Council in Stagfordshire*: A fairly simple anomaly on a S106… Officers are not answering their phones, they are not replying to e-mails, they refuse to talk, engage or meet in any way shape or form. Fine, we then recommended to the applicant that we should get the politicians involved. We reach out to the politicians who first of all said “Oh, gosh, yes… this sounds like something we need to discuss” and then they came back and said: “Oh no, no, no, the officers said we shouldn’t talk to you.”

So, now our friendly KC friend is back on with his much-deserved Porsche because the applicant will have to drag the Council to PINS/Arbitration/Court…  

The knock-on effects of this are that money that should be spent on other things like affordable housing and infrastructure is being spent on entirely unnecessary legal costs that could all have been avoided if there was a little bit more pragmatism on the side of the Council. If we sat down around a table and discussed the matter and come to a mutually agreed way forward, then we could actually deliver the homes and infrastructure that the communities and people they are supposed to represent and serve deserves.

So, my most heartfelt and sincere plea to ALL Councillors and Council Officers are: TALK PEOPLE! Let’s not hide behind growling e-mails or leaving it to escalate. Life is just too short.

Until next week,

Henry

07736121014

*Some names may have been changed