I agree Jim, perception is an important element of transparency and in that regard I've never been entirely comfortable with MIPIM and such like. At the same time, in my time I've been employed by one of Ballymore's main rivals, acted as lead consultant for another, and now regularly act on behalf of the one of the world's largest fast food companies, and never once have I or my clients been involved in any kind of 'dodgy' deals or such like with Councils.There's no doubt that it does go on, at different levels, there was the 'mysterious' departure of a Council employee at Hounslow shortly before I joined, and I was directly involved in the shenanigans involving a couple of Members of the Heston and Cranford Area Committee overriding a considerable number of enforcement recommendations made by myself and my team, which led to an Ombudsman investigation and subsequently that Committee being stripped of its enforcement decision making powers for a year.But I still take offence at how people like Raymond can openly post such direct allegations on public forums and get away with it because of the apparent reluctance of local authorities to take action. And people like Nicholas say "fair play Raymond", well, take a step back and think how you'd feel if someone publicly you of being corrupt when you were just doing your job.In my experience the public are just as bad at inventing things to suit their own arguments. I had the scenario whereby a member of the public resented me doing my job so made a potentially career ending allegation that I'd said to them that we had a major problem with Asians in the Borough - fortunately I had witnesses who confirmed I'd said outbuildings.Alot of what I read from the public on these forums is based on an understandable lack of knowledge of both planning regulations and also how those regulations, along with planning policies and material planning considerations, need to be applied. But understandable ignorance shouldn't be allowed to transcend into direct allegations of corruption, because then the line has been crossed.Clients come to me and I'll say "from a planning policy perspective I'm confident of getting an Officer recommendation for approval, but I know this area well and I suspect the application will attract lots of objections so it'll go to planning committee and I suspect Members will play to the public gallery so we'll have to go to appeal".That's how it works, I'd be a fool if I didn't realise that sometimes the weight of public opposition to a project will over-influence Members, and, whilst it shouldn't really happen because the level of opposition isn't a material planning consideration, of course in reality it does. But I don't then start posting on forums and social media about how the decision is 'dodgy'.Clearly Raymond hasn't got a shred of evidence to support his "more backhanders, no doubt" allegation. But it is a direct allegation, not merely an indirect suggestion of some kind of underhand conduct, and thus it should be properly pursued.After all, if Raymond has the evidence to back up his allegation and it results in a corrupt planner being brought to book, then that's good for the reputation of the planning profession and the public also feel that the Council takes such matters seriously. Silence/a lack of investigation tacitly infers (not necessarily correctly) there's a degree of truth in the allegation.It's like the Oystons at Blackpool FC, whatever fans thought of them there was a line that shouldn't be crossed, and as soon as any fans crossed that line and alleged corruption and such like the Oystons didn't hesitate to instruct solicitors. In every case the fans issued grovelling public apologies acknowledging that they had no evidence to support what they'd written, and as part of the settlement agreed to make modest donations to local charities rather than paying compensation to the Oystons.I'm all for similar actions in cases like these, and as I say that's for the benefit of everyone, I want the public, when they have genuine evidence of corruption, to feel that they can speak out and that proper investigations will take place, but I also want planners to feel that their employers, regardless of what sector they operate in, will robustly defend their integrity when necessary.Similarly, I don't like how some of the news articles on these forums about planning are increasingly factually inaccurate and seemingly being written in a 'sensationalist' way to appeal to their readers. We've recently had the entirely erroneous suggestion on the front page of CW4 about how LBH had issued an enforcement notice and then decided to close an investigation, and as you point out the front page article on here includes the erroneous headline that suggests the car park is "illegal", which it isn't.So when you've got headlines and articles like that, it's hardly surprising that some posters aren't engaging their brains and thinking very carefully about what they write before posting on the forum.
Adam Beamish ● 1208d