BY a narrow margin the recommendation that the final version of the core strategy should be published and submitted to the secretary of state was defeated at full council on September 30. This was a great relief to various activists present in the public galley and also to many councillors who argued cogently for Bruce Hogan's amendment that it should be reviewed and scrutinised prior to submission in the New Year.
Nigel Gibbons, forward plan manager, was subjected to stringent questioning regarding the procedure, which appears to be absurd in the extreme. Apparently the core strategy planning is submitted to the secretary of state and may be accompanied by statements from the council regarding further recent information. These may be reviewed by the inspectors and may be recommended, with these recommendations being binding on the council, but alternatively they may be ignored and there is little the council can do by way of redress.
Thus the council could be saddled with a core strategy that is not germane to the current situation in the Forest, that has to be complied with in planning applications and that cannot be changed for some years. For these reasons various councillors argued that it is essential to ensure that the strategy is extensively updated before submission.
One of the many flaws in the current strategy appears to be that it is housing-led and not employment-led. In Lydney, for example, there is little point in building houses when there is no prospect of employment for the purchasers. The jobs have to come first, and this, in turn, is dependent largely on attracting high-tech companies which cannot be done until the broadband situation is vastly improved. No consideration of pending 'localism' legislation, with far-reaching consequences, has been made.
The protection of Forest waste is dismissed in a few words, something that is infuriating Dean Forest Voice. In spite of arguments by council officers that the strategy is constructed on evidence-based data, statistician expert Prof. Laurence Moseley has calculated that most of this data is out-of-date and incorrect. The council's scrutiny committees will now review the entire document (although scrutiny by full council would appear preferable) and, we must hope, take expert advice. We are promised that there will also be consultation with all interested parties. For once, common sense has prevailed, even if only at the eleventh hour.
Also at full council the validity of Bruce Hogan's motion to an earlier meeting that Members' motions and questions should be placed high on the agenda was amply demonstrated. Because the debate on the core strategy was so protracted the agenda was not completed and members' questions remained unposed and unanswered. The deferment is until the next full council meeting on December 2, rather than to a short interim meeting, so there will be a gap of almost half a year (from last July to December) between members being allowed to question policy publicly. This is one of the results of the anomaly of councillors being forbidden to ask questions at cabinet meetings, although members of the public can.
The ruling party was not seen in a good light last Thursday evening because to have immediately agreed a review of the core strategy (especially as new legislation is pending) would have been a sensible route to take. Instead of curtailing the debate by a graceful capitulation, cabinet prolonged it unnecessarily with futile arguments and then lost by two votes. Is cabinet working in the interests of the Forest of Dean or against them? If the latter, we need to change the system. – Dr Daphne Pearson, Redbrook