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Officials overruling elected councillors is disaster for all
• WE ARE all the losers in the King’s Cross planning episode (Revealed: Pressures on KX planners, Jan 11).
Moira Gibb and Peter Bishop and the Town Hall lawyers will be elsewhere when the retched Argent project gets underway.
Pity the people of Camden if neither officials nor councillors are effective and functional.
The damage done to the reputation of Camden is already immense. The coalition should now be concerned to address the democratic deficit.
I suppose the next injury will be new routes in King’s Cross being named Moira Gibb Way, Peter Bishop Alley and Dame Jane Roberts cul-de-sac.
MONICA CRAMER
Daleham Gardens, NW3
• REPORTS of Moira Gibb’s fears over King’s Cross make for alarming reading.
Why? If the Camden planners had persuaded themselves that they knew best, what reason had they to fear from the public scrutiny of an independent planning inquiry inspector?
Asking Peter Bishop and his team to act as urban designers for a major project is a bit like asking the village motor mechanic to design a ‘next generation’ motor car.
Local planners lack the experience, vision and skills for a major design project and that is why all over Europe prima donna British designers are being engaged to do such tasks.
Moira Gibbs and Peter Bishop were clearly out of their depth when Councillor Brian Woodrow raised his serious concerns.
MARTIN SMITH
Gower Street, NW1
• CONGRATULATIONS to the CNJ for exposing those responsible for some of the more disastrous decisions in Camden (Lawyers warned £2bn project delay would be embarrassing, Jan 4).
The public has asked for them to be named and shamed and the CNJ has come through for us, as usual.
Peter Bishop and Alison Lowton will forever be remembered in Camden for their total disregard to the taxpayers who footed the bill for their salaries.
Peter Bishop’s philosophy that councillors should not question the advice of Town Hall officials and, therefore, exposing just how he seemed to have gotten his way with various controversial planning applications says it all.
MICHAEL PATTERSON BROWN
Gloucester Avenue, NW1
• UNDER Labour’s watch we came to realise that, but for a few exceptions such as Brian Woodrow, councillors either beavered away diligently when to do so served their particular interests or they idly left the day-to-day running of the Town Hall to the bureaucrats. Neither stance has pleased the electors.
The fiasco of King’s Cross and Dalby Street are illustrative of neglect.
Billed as the greatest urban regeneration project in Europe, the former initiative is likely to be mocked for its design mediocrity and startling lack of sustainable characteristics.
Brian Woodrow, not Roger Madelin, deserves a gong, if gongs there must be.
WILLIAM NAWROCKI
Savernake Road, NW3
• IN the letters page last week there were many correspondents who took issue with the view that “elected councillors should not question advice provided by Town hall officers”.
They are right to be concerned. Anyone who has attended a Development Control Committee hearing where the councillors voted against an officer recommendation will have probably heard threats of financial penalties against the councillors if any subsequent appeal goes against the council.
Perhaps if the officers wish to have their advice followed they should be willing to suffer financial penalties if it turns out to be wrong.
Until then they need to allow the councillors who are elected by the people who pay the bills to question their advice.
DAVID KANER
Mercer St, WC2
• WHAT is unravelling with your recent perceptive articles about the Town Hall is a catalogue of incompetence, maladministration and possibly worse within the system.
There is only one honourable position left for chief executive Moira Gibb in my view – that is to resign.
If she is not prepared to do so, then she should at least retract her unfair statements about Councillor Brian Woodrow.
King’s Cross is a project which is important to Camden, the rest of London and the country at large. Her initial dismissal of criticisms about the King’s Cross proposal and those who rightfully expressed reservations over it should now be reconsidered. From now on, her performance will be studied with a special interest.
C MARVIN
Kentish Town Road, NW5
• I WAS horrified to read your item (Revealed: Pressures on KX Planners, Jan 11) because chief executive Moira Gibb is employed by us poor gullible suckers to oversee the way our council is run.
When the likes of Peter Bishop, for example, overstepped the mark and tried to shut up councillors over dubious planning applications, she should have stepped in.
When other Town Hall officials did and apparently still do a sloppy job, she is the one responsible for remedying the situation. We now learn from your excellent article, however, that Moira Gibb is not always available to protect the interest of the public.
What the Town Hall needs now is cleansing of the sloppiness tolerated by the easygoing previous adminstration.
Meanwhile, I strongly feel that Councillor Brian Woodrow deserves an apology from Moira Gibb and others who apparently conspired to destroy the reputation of this forthright and honest man.
MARGARET MACKAY
Frognal Lane, NW3 |
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