Indecision grips Council on “no brainer”

The Council Leader failed to take a decision today on which tender to accept for the sale of Oliver House, which has been empty for 2 years..

24 bids were received for the site with the highest being for £3.2 million. 

The income is desperately needed by the York Council to plug major gaps in its budget.

It may be that Labour Councillors are now trying to appease their Green party coalition partners who bizarrely suggested last week that the Council should accept the lowest bid offered for the property.

The full list of bidders and offers is reproduced below.

It would be unlawful for the Council to accept a bid which was more than £2 million below the highest offer received.

Oliver House bid appraisal March 2015 click to enlarge

Oliver House bid appraisal March 2015 click to enlarge

Significant planning decision for York Green Belt

Brecks Lane, Strensall  planning application turned down by Secretary of State

click to download full decision

click to download full decision

A proposal to build 102 houses on land next to Brecks Lane in Strensall has been turned down by the Secretary of State,

He “called in” the application after 9 Labour Councillors outvoted 7 Opposition Councillors to approve it at a local Planning committee meeting held on 24th February 2014. At that time the Council still had an overall Labour majority under the leadership of Cllr Alexander.

The Minister said that the refusal was because the site was located in the Green Belt.

This has a major significance for other peripheral sites around the City which were to be taken out of the Green Belt under Labours “Big City” expansion plans.

Now the draft Local Plan – rejected by the Council in October – has received a further blow.

It is good news for threatened sites in Woodthorpe, Foxwood Lane and between Acomb and the A1237, as all are in the currently defined Green Belt

The full decision can be downloaded by clicking here

No decision will be taken on the Local Plan now until after the Council elections on May 7th.

There are around 5000 outstanding planning permissions for new homes in York. The majority are on “brownfield” – previously developed -land.

Cllr Ann Reid the new Liberal Democrat chair of the Planning Committee commented;

Members of the City of York Council planning committee visit the land at Strensall where Linden Homes want to build 102 homes

Site inspection in 2014

“I am delighted that the Secretary of State has refused planning permission for this site. Crucially, the ruling completely undermines a number of claims made by the Labour Cabinet and further discredits their Draft Local Plan.

 “The ruling recognises that the land is in the Green Belt and development should therefore be blocked in order to protect York’s character and stop unrestricted urban sprawl. It shows that even without a Local Plan in place it will not be open-season for developers in York’s countryside.

 “Crucially, the ruling supports the view that preventing development on this site, and on other Green Belt sites, will encourage development of brownfield land. This is why the Liberal Democrat Group has consistently advocated a brownfield first building policy.

 “The ruling says that only in very special circumstances should Green Belt land be developed. Labour have not demonstrated that those circumstances exist for this or other sites across York.

 “With so many undeveloped brownfield sites it is imperative that these are developed before a further attempt is made to bulldoze the Green Belt. Labour’s housing policy is once again in tatters and a radical rethink is needed.”

“Lets start talking” -Lib Dems call for return of committee system

Yorkshire loses chance of more powers in the wake of the elected Mayor impasse.

The government announced some delegated powers for the York and West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) yesterday but did not go as far as has been offered to Manchester. The government (rightly) says that the decision takers in Leeds – a gang of Labour Council Leaders – are not directly democratically accountable.

Given the appalling mess that some single party dominated Councils (Doncaster, Rotherham etc) have got into, the elected Mayor model is little better, substituting an elected dictator for what should be wide ranging debate and democracy..

The solution is to have a small directly elected Executive for the WYCA. To avoid dominance by one party (unless electors wanted that) seats should be allocated in proportion to the votes cast for each party.

Electors should have a say on which individual candidates they prefer (to avoid the party list monopoly -which is the major failure of the European election system). Costs could be contained by gradually reducing – by around 10% – the number of Councillors elected to other authorities. There should be a power of recall.

There is an opportunity to have a genuinely open system with social media having already shown how increasing numbers of residents can participate in debates about issues.

Mean while locally, the Liberal Democrat Group on City of York Council are calling for a radical overhaul of the way the council takes decisions with a return to a committee system.

Under the council’s current ‘leader and cabinet’ model, decision-making power is concentrated in the hands of just six cabinet members. Under a committee system, the cabinet would be scrapped and policy would instead be made by various cross-party committees with all political groups represented.

A Lib Dem motion on the issue will be debated at next Thursday’s full council meeting. The motion argues that the current system is “not-fit-for-purpose” and a more “open and collaborative” approach is needed.

The potential change was made possible through the Coalition Government’s 2011 Localism Act. Following this, a number of councils including Sutton and Brighton & Hove have moved to a committee-style system.

(more…)