Ian
 |
| KEITH TAYLOR GREEN PARTY MEP AND CAMPIGNERS AT SHEPHERDSWELL DRILLING SITE |
PRESS
RELEASE
22
September East Kent Gas Drilling Applications - KCC Breaks the Rules
Campaigners against exploratory shale and coal bed methane
gas drilling at Guston, Tilmanstone and Shepherdswell have accused Kent County
Council of breaking planning rules and best practice (1).
In a letter to KCC Planning boss, Sharon Thompson, East
Kent Against Fracking supporter and Thanet Green Party Councillor, Ian Driver, accuses
officers of:
- failing to
ensure that the drilling company, Coastal Oil and Gas Ltd, organised public meetings with residents
of the three villages to discuss the applications and answer questions;
- failing to advertise
the planning applications in local newspapers;
- failing to
notify all village residents about the applications, rather than just those
living in the immediate neighbourhood of the proposed drilling site;
- failing to
organise village public meetings at which residents could find out how to
object to the applications;
- failing to provide parish, district and county
councillors with technical briefings on the three applications.
Shepherdswell resident Pamela Mudge-Wood said: “I heard nothing from the developers or KCC about this application. No letters have been sent to me and no public meetings organised by KCC or Coastal Oil and Gas. I found out about the applications from Facebook and was so worried that I started leafleting Shepherdswell myself. We now have a small group of about 20 residents who are beginning to campaign against the applications.”
Chair of East Kent Against Fracking Rosemary Rechter said:
“KCCs management of these applications has been absolutely appalling. Their
failure to follow the rules means that local people are being denied their
democratic rights to make informed comments about extremely important issues in
their villages.”
Driver is now calling upon KCC to terminate the “fatally
flawed” consultation process and re-start it, allowing residents more time to understand
and comment on these complex applications and providing councillors with
technical briefing sessions. If KCC fails to do this, Driver says that he will
complain to the Local Government Ombudsman.
In a separate development, countryside charity
CPRE-Protect Kent will be holding a public meeting at Shepherdswell Village Hall
on 25th September at 7.00pm to discuss the applications.
Ends For more information contact Councillor Ian Driver on 07866588766
Notes
(1) Kent
Minerals and Waste Development Framework Statement of Public Involvement 2011
can be found at
Dear Ms Thompson
I am writing to express my
concern about the management of the consultation process for the exploratory
gas drilling planning applications at Guston, Tilmanstone and Shepherdswell.
It is my view that the
Planning Authority has failed to adhere to its own guidance as set out in the
Kent Minerals and Waste Development Framework Statement of Public Involvement
2011. This failure is of a sufficiently serious magnitude to justify the
termination of the current consultation process and for you to begin a new one,
which accords more fully with the Statement.
According to Paragraph 4.2
and Policy 6 of the Statement of Public Involvement, your department must encourage
“applicants of potentially controversial proposals to engage with the relevant
communities as early as possible and subsequently demonstrate how they have
responded to the issues raised”.
I am sure you will agree
that these applications are extremely controversial, but I am unaware that
Coastal Oil and Gas Ltd have engaged, to any meaningful degree, with the local
communities concerned. To the best of my knowledge, this company has not set up
public meetings at Guston, Tilmanstone or Shepherdswell at which they have
presented their plans to residents,
answered questions and taken into account any comments or proposals.
I would be grateful if you
could provide me with evidence (e-mails, meeting records etc) that your
officers made genuine efforts to implement this policy. Please provide me with
evidence (e-mails, meeting records etc.) of how your officers managed any
resistance or refusal by the applicant to engage with the communities
concerned.
According to KCC’s Planning
website, a notice of the planning applications was published in the Kent on
Sunday newspaper on 15.09.2013. Policy 7 and Para 4.4.1 of the Statement of
Public Involvement requires that the application is published in local newspaper(s). The editorial of Kent on Sunday on 21st September
described itself as a “county newspaper” and Wikipedia describes Kent on Sunday
as a “regional newspaper”.
It would therefore appear
that in placing the planning notice in Kent on Sunday on 15th September you
have acted contrary to your Statement of Public Involvement, which requires the
notice to be published in a local newspaper(s). Could you please advise me
whether any notices of application have been published in local newspapers and,
if so, in which publications. If such notices were published after the 15th
September, then I assume that you will alter the consultation timetable
accordingly.
Paragraph 4.4.9 of the
Statement of Public Involvement states that, depending upon the nature of a
planning applicant, you may sometimes exceed statutory consultation requirement
by notifying all local residents rather than just adjoining neighbours of a
planning application. I would argue that the controversial nature of the
applications at Guston, Shepherdswell and Tilmanstone merit the application of
this discretionary power. Please provide me with evidence (e-mails, meeting
notes etc) to demonstrate that consideration was given to notifying all local
residents about these applications and evidence as to why it was decided not to
do this.
Para 4.5.5 of the Statement
of Public Involvement states that in the case of controversial applications, or
applications which have a high level of interest from the local community, a
“public meeting may be arranged”. I am sure you will agree that these three
applications are extremely controversial but I am unaware of your having made
any arrangements to hold public meetings at Guston, Shepherdswell or
Tilmanstone. Could you please inform me whether it is your intention to hold
public meetings at each of these locations?
Even if you do, belatedly,
decide to hold public meetings, I feel that the time required to organise them
and notify residents means that they will be held very close to the
consultation deadline, which will be extremely unfair to residents.
Finally, test drilling for
gas is a very complex and technical issue. I am very surprised therefore that
the Planning Authority appears to have failed to provide democratically elected
consultees and decision makers, at parish, district and county level, with any
background briefing or training so that they can make informed comment on
behalf of their constituents.
I was at the Shepherdswell
Parish Council meeting last week and no planning officer was present to provide
advice to councillors. I understand that no planning officer was present at the
Guston or Tilmanstone Parish Council
meetings either. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, all 3 parish councils
have decided not to make formal comment to KCC about these applications because
they feel that the information provided by KCC has been insufficient.
The Local Government
Association, of which KCC is a member, recommends in its Guide for New
Councillors 2013-14 and its 2010 publication, Probity in Planning, that because
planning is a complex and changing area, councillors must be specially trained
and that this training should be supplemented with special briefing sessions on
planning issues which may be technical or controversial, such as those at
Guston, Shepherdswell or Tilmanstone.
I have found no evidence to
demonstrate that KCC, in partnership with Dover District Council, have made any
effort whatsoever to provide parish, district or county councillors with
special briefings to help them understand the issues involved before they make
formal comments about, or decisions on, these applications.
I am extremely disappointed
that the Planning Authority appears, in relation to these three applications,
to have clearly disregarded its own guidance on public involvement in the
planning process and to have ignored the advice of LGA about providing training
and briefing sessions for councillors commenting or deciding on complex
planning issues. This is particularly worrying when the nature of the three
applications concerned is taken into account.
I trust that, in light of my
comments, you will now begin a new and proper consultation process and initiate
a programme of councillor briefings, otherwise I will have no option but to
take this matter to the Local Government Ombudsman on the grounds of
maladministration and injustice.
I look forward to hearing
from you.
Yours sincerely
Councillor
Ian DriverThe Green Party
Thanet istrict Council
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