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Letters to the Editor
 
All parties should work on planning

This is an open letter to the leaders of the main political parties involved in the 2006 Camden borough council elections to be held on Thursday 4 May.
As you will see from our newsletter on planning in Camden, there is widespread concern in the community about the current operation of our local authority’s planning processes.
We all know there is a widespread shortage of good planning officers, and the council taxpayer is resistant to any heavier burdens.
This society is therefore asking all the main political parties, currently on the council, to examine critically how they can improve one of the aspects of the council’s work that impinges most closely on so many of its citizens, often with lasting impact.
The logistics of the development control sub-committee have been improved, somewhat. However, they would be improved still further when all the verbal interchanges are fully audible, all the time, and not just to other councillors and officers.
To go into detail, we would ask the new administration:
• To adopt a programme of continuing planning education for residents and potential developers, conservation area advisory committees (CAACs) and the press so that all understand the modus operandi under which the process has to operate.
• To ensure the actual operation of the sub-committee is made more user/participant friendly.
• To determine that all planning applications delegated to officers are still discussed in public, with the latter having the right of audience.
• To ensure that not only should professional advisers be informed of the sub-committee’s decisions but so also should the applicant him/herself.
• To demand that much greater effort be made to notify neighbours of all planning applications to the council, with that term generously interpreted. The council should reconsider its decision to no longer to publish in the local newspapers the details of its main applications.
• Finally to support the request of the Heath and Hampstead and Highgate Societies, together with ourselves, for Camden’s planning processes, especially in conservation areas, to be the subject of a comprehensive scrutiny panel review.

Martin Morton
Chairman, Camden Civic Society,
Hillway, N6


Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.
 
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