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Moira Gibbs |
Town Hall chief’s ‘no regrets’ over KX probe
Top civil servant says reporting vindicated councillor was right
MOIRA Gibb, Camden Council’s chief executive, is adamant that the Town Hall was completely justified in pursuing Labour councillor Brian Woodrow through a draining Standards Board investigation – even though he was ultimately vindicated.
She was said this week to have been “personally involved every step of the way” and has no regrets over the action. The case laid bare the tension over the planning process at the Town Hall and bitter relations between councillors and the officers paid to serve them.
The claims emerged at a meeting of the council’s internal Standards Committee at the end of last month.
Cllr Woodrow was accused of bias against the redevelopment of the King’s Cross railwaylands in his role as planning chairman, a position he was later ousted from by his own Labour colleagues amid concern that he could derail the £2 billion proposals.
An adjudication panel brought a two-year Standards Board investigation to end in December when it ruled that Cllr Woodrow’s actions did not warrant a punishment.
Lib Dem councillor Paul Braithwaite has now revealed that he had a meeting with Ms Gibb on December 19 at her request in which she told him that she was unhappy that he had described the process as a “witch hunt”.
In a letter to Camden’s committee, he said: “She told me that the council had been right to pursue Brian Woodrow, that there had been no ‘witch hunt’ and she had been personally involved at every step of the way.”
Ms Gibb has not commented on the case.
During his hearing, Cllr Woodrow accused unelected council officers of being obsessed with getting the applications through the planning process without the need for an inquiry.
In a follow-up letter to Ms Gibb, Cllr Braithwaite added: “I found our conversation helpful. It demonstrated to me how far apart our views are on the Brian Woodrow ‘affair’, with the benefit of hindsight.
“You appeared to be implacably confident that you and your team did ‘the right thing’. I had hoped that it would be a ‘line in the sand’, lessons could be learned, the council could display some generosity of spirit and we could move forward to a more cohesive and less threatening working relationship between councillors and your council.
“I urge you to consider bridge building rather than hauling up the drawbridge.”
Cllr Braithwaite – elected to the council last May – said lessons from the case had still not been learned.
A council statement said: “The council took the difficult, very carefully considered and appropriate action to report concerns about the conduct of the former Chair of the Development Control Committee in relation to his role in the decision making process for the King’s Cross Development to the Standards Board – the national watchdog for standards in local authorities.”
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