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Dalby St and the question of accountability
• NICK Harding’s letter (Misleading Sport England, October 15) deserves a supportive response.
It poses important issues.
A proven conclusion that Camden Council misled Sport England, would put a crack the edifice of due and proper administrative process. That is bad enough. The further complaint that local citizens have subsequently been unable reasonably to discover important facts relating to the granting of planning permission to build on Dalby Street runs deeper, undermining the democratic process itself? Without an easy and willing flow of information and facts from government to the governed, democracy does not exist. Democracy needs transparency. At key points in the Dalby Street affair, there seems to be official obscurantism instead.
In the case of Dalby Street there is one overriding fact that may not be hidden; the fact that voters and citizens have had information requested under Freedom of Information legislation withheld by Camden officials. The grounds for withholding some of that information look spurious and questionable. Have the exceptions given by parliament to the general freedom of information been turned into the rule? For example, by citing “commercial confidentiality” when the need for it has passed or was never significant in relation to other public interest considerations. “Commercial confidentiality” is too easily used as a loophole out of democratic accountability and badly needs reform.
Furthermore, were Talacre leisure centre employees as claimed, prevented by Camden officials from giving testimony to a public planning tribunal by threats of discipline and dismissal? If true, that is an unreasonable usurpation of the citizen’s right to be informed and an objectionable denial of freedom of speech in a matter of public interest and concern for those citizens who were silenced. The question underlying the case of Dalby Street is whether there was democratic accountability?
It is shocking disillusion when citizens discover that they can not, in the ordinary course of events, reasonably obtain information about the actions of those who govern them. But it is criminally outrageous if and when the Freedom of Information Act is perversely used to prevent that freedom, by giving emphasis to the exception rather than the rule. That is dangerous topsy turvy, Alice-in-Wonderland stuff.
Does the writ of parliament not run in the corridors of Camden Council? Does the democratic ideal not reside in the hearts and minds of its officials? Are cynicism and obfuscation its house gods? Our democracy is under threat. The citizens of Kentish Town want some answers. It would be seemly for Camden Council to offer them.
Robert Sutherland-Smith
Widecombe Way, N2
Are council listening?
• THE historic decision made by Camden’s “listening” council in May to grant Talacre Gardens Town Green status (subject to boundary agreements) has once again become a wrangle over the plans for Dalby Street.
If we are to ensure that our young sports people and future generations of users are to have a safe, viable, access to the sport facility, it is paramount that Camden Council declare their intentions and do not continue to duck and dive with inoperative plans for Dalby Street.
Are the council “listening” to the developers or to the residents and users whose views have already been made more than transparent?
Yasmin Allen
Malden Road, NW5
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