If you have read my two previous posts (and it would seem a few of you have, including I understand, a few Councillors), then you will be familiar with the saga so far. (And how long I bang on for, so apologies for the lack of brevity). Murky goings on, millions of pounds worth of development gains in the personal hands of District Councillors, politics and political bias, so many conflicts of interest it is difficult to find people not conflicted, and a governance system and officials who appear impotent (and not willing) to rid the Council of a group of people whose behaviour and lack of ethics are leaving its reputation in tatters. If this was an Archers storyline, The Radio Times would be full of letters of complaint saying it is too far fetched to be realistic.
This disgraceful episode reaches a crucial stage on Thursday 5th February at 6.30 at the MHDC Chambers. If you are a journalist reading this, I urge you to attend the meeting and give the proceedings and outcome as much publicity as possible. The Public need to know the kind of people they have running local politics.
Quite what happens at that meeting is anyone's guess, as indeed will be the make up of the committee. As well as disclosable interests, Councillors will (one hopes) be mindful of "pre determination" and "bias" (especially after their recent Continuing Professional Development course - see further below). They must judge the Clay Green Farm application on its own merits and must take into account all of the information placed before them and not just follow the recommendation of their planning department which itself is too close to the main players in this farce and their political group. Hopefully, one of the factors they will want to consider is the public ridicule that both they and the Council will suffer if they don't stand up against Councillors pushing through personal planning schemes when this sorry tale is revealed to the general public.
I understand that it is Conservative Group policy that if someone cannot attend a meeting, the leader of the Group (a certain D Hughes) can select the alternate. An interest concept of impartiality. The meeting, I believe, will be chaired by Melanie Baker, a close political ally of Mr Hughes and someone appointed to her paid Portfolio post by David Hughes.
With one of the possible outcomes, if Councillor Hughes wins approval for his Clay Green Farm scheme with Greenlight Developments, and continues in office, then you will have witnessed one of the most outrageous abuses of power and position you are likely to see. (Please don't get me wrong, Hughes resigning on Thursday would not absolve him of any of his behaviour so far - he should not have stood for office in the first place with his development plans, and at the very least should have resigned the moment he decided to take them forward). However, the man's behaviour so far would dictate that a Rhino's skin would appear fragile compared with his own; not only is he not planning on resigning, he has already told people that he plans to stand for re-election in May! Quite incredible.
At one stage, we feared that the behind the scenes manoeuvring of the politicians within his own party might mean that they were looking to grant him the planning he wanted on CGF in return for him stepping down as Leader (keep those concepts of pre determination and bias in the front of your mind during my waffling). However, it would appear that the local Conservative MP has stepped in and demanded unity amongst the party at MHDC level (and therefore stopping the plot to oust him) for fear of upsetting the applecart before the May elections.
The same MP, Harriett Baldwin, has distanced herself from the whole sordid affair when her constituents have asked her in intervene. One of the residents of Clifton received a reply to his request. In that letter, Mrs Baldwin said she was sure people would prefer local planning decisions to be made locally, by democratically elected Councillors rather than in Westminster. Of course that is true. However, what people actually want, is people who stand for election to be honest and open about their personal agendas and interests, for them to resign if they have such fundamental personal interests in the planning process that they cannot be impartial, and to vote for planning applications on their merits, not on party political grounds.
Mrs Baldwin also said "I am sure the democratically elected councillors will be listening to their electorate especially closely at this time (with an election in May)." With the greatest of respect Mrs Baldwin, I don't think anything Mr Hughes is doing shows he is remotely interested in his electorate. Perhaps instead he is thinking of the likely 7 figure sum coming his way if he gets his planning permission.
Meanwhile, he appears to be floating along impervious to the criticisms being levelled against him; the virtually unanimous disgust of his constituents and neighbours in Alfrick at what he is trying to do to their village; and that the Police are taking very seriously the complaints that he broke the law which the Monitoring Officer dismissed but Planning Counsel believes are valid.
In the Malvern Gazette on January 23rd, Mr Hughes, when questioned about the Police enquiry, was quoted as saying "I am confident I have done nothing wrong."
You will recall from my earlier blog that Mr Hughes, who has a business relationship with Greenlight Developments Ltd, failed to declare that interest when they promoted the Blue Shot Meadow site and he voted on that. (Mrs Williams of course having voted against a previous scheme in Clifton which the village did support but would have blocked Blue Shot Meadow and she having not disclosed that plans were already drawn up for BSM at that time).
So there is no question that he has done wrong. Which is why a completely independent planning specialist barrister has given a formal opinion that he has done wrong; it is why the Police are taking this seriously and it is why anyone not involved with this that I have spoken to over the last two months believe it is as clear as day that he has done wrong. Rather than explaining why there was a conflict of interest, I asked the Monitoring Officer in my complaint how he reached the conclusion that there wasn't one.
Yet Mr Hughes is"convinced" he has done nothing wrong. This leads me to think that there may be perhaps two possible reasons for this:
1. He actually knows he has done wrong, but he is lying and hopes that by bluffing it out and the general malaise of the governance system around him he will get away with it. (And maybe if he gets planning permission for his development, he'll have some much money he won't care anyway). I don't think the people of MHDC want a liar as the leader of their Council so let's hope this one isn't true.
2. He genuinely thinks he has not done anything wrong. This would go against common sense, any sense of decency and the code of conduct for District Councillors. But I suppose it is just possible that he has missed all of this, he has failed to understand what is blindingly obvious to everyone else and he really thinks he can be involved in the planning process for one of his business partners. Perhaps it might have helped him if the law firm Bevan Brittan had given their seminar on 'Probity in Planning" some time ago rather than on Thursday last week. That should have cleared the fog in his mind for him. (By the way, buy the person who booked that pre Council meeting entertainment a drink! How ironic that they should be getting that training now. Whoever booked it is either running scared or has a great sense of humour).
If Mr Hughes really does think he has done no wrong, then he is either in Walter Mitty country (perhaps he has said he is right so many times to himself that he now believes that) or he does not have the intellect to carry out the duties of the post to which he was elected.
Of course, another outcome on Thursday might be that the CGF scheme is turned down and the councillors voting on the evening ignore party loyalties, loyalty to the Leader that appointed them to paid posts in the Council and simply vote for what the public would see as the right answer - that this scheme is not suitable for Alfrick and it is totally wrong for Councillor Hughes to receive a windfall profit having not acted in the highest standards for his office. In my previous posts I listed the 7 principles for acting in public office. I would add here a sentence from the job description of the MHDC Leader:
"The jobholder will be expected to exemplify the highest standards of conduct, probity, open and transparent government and equality & diversity". What it doesn't go on to say is "but don't worry if your behaviour and actions have been so poor, and our own internal system of self governance so weak, that the residents that we are here to serve will be forced to report your actions to the police who will need to waste valuable resources on investigating you."
If that does happen, then it will be a triumph for the residents of Alfrick and Lulsley, the people of Clifton and Upton who have supported them and a few decent and honest councillors who have fought to expose this corruption. It will also be a shameful day for those responsible for the ethical standards of MHDC, the District Councillors who have continued in post whilst having personal housing development schemes, those that have not stood up against this and the outside parties who have failed to act.
It is now in the public domain that Councillor Hughes has been reported to the Police for taking part in the Blue Shot Meadow planning application despite a blindly obvious conflict of interest. The Police should be applauded for the level of seriousness with which they are taking the complaint and the courtesy and respect that they have shown the residents who have made the complaint. Of course, many residents had already complained to MHDC about this but their concerns were dismissed (as previously reported here). Interestingly, the Monitoring Officer has now seen the light. Rather than there being no case to answer, he has decided to re-examine his previous decision. It is now apparently 'in the public interest" to re-examine his decision.
I think not. It was in the public interest to deal properly with the complaints in the first place because they highlighted the Leader of the Council flagrantly ignoring his loss of impartiality on all planning matters but very specifically on Blue Shot Meadow. It is only since that matter has been reported to the Police and the residents have managed to expose the wrong doings to a wider audience, that this decision has been made. I suspect a more accurate explanation would have been "I now consider it is in my self interest to re-examine my decision". The light, rather than a flash of inspiration, is probably a damn big train coming straight at him down the tunnel.
I was hoping to speak at the meeting on Thursday. There are a number of slots at the start of the meeting (any of the committee meetings held by MHDC) at which the public can speak for 5 minutes on any agenda item (it's part of Public Participation in a better democratic process you know). I asked to speak about conflicts of interest and disclosable interests (to highlight in public forum and in front of the Councillors this matter which is of the utmost importance). I pointed out to 'Democratic Services" that I really didn't mind which agenda item I spoke about, they are all impacted by having Councillors who are flagrantly breaching their overall ethical duty to the electorate and a Monitoring system that doesn't work.
You will not be surprised to hear that I am not being allowed to speak. The Monitoring Officer informed me of this.
It is appalling that residents of the villages, many of whom are pensioners, have had to spend their own money on commissioning legal advice to demonstrate the wrong doing. It shows an amazing community spirit but it is wrong - this should be the Council's responsibility to sort out. And let's not forget this has been brought about but Councillors standing for office, or remaining in office, when their impartiality has been terminally compromised by the personal development gains. They have brought this about and, in my view, the Council should sue them for bringing MHDC into disrepute and to repay the residents their legal costs.
Whilst I have been rambling on for several pages, I'd better perhaps put my comments in context. Readers may think I am another "Nimbyish" neighbour worried about the view from my guest bedroom and against any development per se in our beautiful villages. So a few facts that might clear up any misunderstandings:
1. I do not live in Alfrick, I cannot see the development site and it will have no direct impact on where I live. (I do however think that the large increase in cars commuting from Alfrick will have a marked impact on an already dangerous lane through Lulsley and on an incredibly dangerous junction at Knightwick).
2. I do not have a political axe to grind against the Conservative Group within MHDC. Which main political party I vote for is my business and no one else's (but as a 55 year old, one of the owners of a business that employs 300 people, who lives in the country, reads the Telegraph and plays golf, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to have a good guess). I would be just as outraged whichever party was trying to line up the votes for a scheme which will wreck a village for the personal gain of its leader. It is of no relevance which party is involved in the wrong doing, my beef is that a scheme like CGF should have nothing to do politics whatsoever, whichever party's leader stands to benefit from his fellow party members being on the committee. I am surprised at MPs not wanting to get involved to sort this out because this should be highly embarrassing for the Conservatives.
3. Like most other people around here, I am not against development in villages, I just believe it should be carefully thought out, well sited, well serviced and be appropriated designed. Alfrick would probably benefit from a few retirement bungalows, for residents that would like to stay in the village and free up their houses for younger people. But those would need to be sited somewhere safe, designed well and only if ecology and all services (drainage etc) were carefully planned.
So what was the title of the Blog all about "Who are those guys?". Think back to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid again. Do you remember the gang chasing Butch and Sundance? They just kept coming, whatever the main characters did to shake them off. Eventually, the chasers got them and there was a bloodbath which didn't end well for our heroes.
We haven't got a posse of professional gun men. We've just got an odd assortment of outraged local villagers who will not allow those in power to abuse that power and flout their ethical standards for personal gain. This will not end in a shoot out in a Bolivian town square but rest assured, unless MHDC and its Councillors stand up and be counted for what is right, we will keep coming. There won't be any shooting but whether it is in a court room, a ballot box or the national press, there will be a bloodbath.
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