New Portobello High School - PPAG Judicial Review

[seanie]

[seanie]

The issue of 'prejudice' is important, and again actions are relevant.

If someone threatens legal action and a developer proceeds regardless, then if an action quickly follows it's the developer's own hard luck if it causes aborted costs or delays. But if someone threatens legal action and then nothing happens, a developer's entitled to take the lack of action as acquiescence and proceed. It's hardly fair to expect a developer to sit around indefinitely waiting for a threatened legal action that may or may not come. And if a challenge comes so late that the developer has incurred significant expenses, then it's fair that the delay can be a basis for dismissal.

[Betty Windsor]

[Bob Jefferson]

[Betty Windsor]

[Makaveli]

Agent of the state? Seriously I just about fell off my seat when I read that one!!!

This is hilarious stuff.

[Porty]

What have i said about Stephen and Diana?

[Betty Windsor]

Do you know anyone even interested in this debate, let alone willing to take the time to post, who is not from the area or who does not have children at PHS. In my experience the only people who do not want to hold the council to account for their actions in this case are the parents who have children who will directly benefit from a new school and the council officials themselves of course.
Given that she does not want to reveal her true identity we have no way of verifying that she is indeed what she says she is.
She could be absolutely anybody.

[Makaveli]

Maybe she is a he?

What if she/he is grooming you? Worrying stuff indeed.

[seanie]

Was there not a black helicopter overhead the other day?

[Epykat]

[Makaveli]

Why - is she hirsute?

[Bob Jefferson]

[Makaveli]

Thanks Bob - I have just had to convince my wife I am not watching tales of the unexpected on the laptop!!!!

[Bob Jefferson]

[Puerto bella]

[seanie]

Anyhoo...

Let's consider the issue of delay, and the importance of prompt action, given the sequence of events.

In December 2008 a full Council meeting confirms the intention to proceed with building the school on the park, without prior authority of the courts. At the same meeting a PPAG delegation announce they intend to take legal action. So the Council has been given fair warning of a legal challenge, and then?

Er...not much.

Apart from a letter to the Evening News nothing happens till 14 months later when, knowing that it has already been decided not to go to court, PPAG write to the Council suggesting a 'joint action'.

Entirely predictably, the Council respond that as per their decision more than a year earlier they will not go to court. This is re-affirmed at a full Council meeting in March '10. A meeting informed by PPAG that they intend to take legal action.

So again the Council is given fair warning. And with considerable alacrity PPAG, a mere 6 months later, confirm in writing that they intend to launch a legal action. Just in case the Council hadn't heard them in March.

Or December 2008.

Again the Council's been given fair warning. Really they shouldn't proceed any further knowing there's an impending legal challenge. And sure enough, a mere 6 months later, in March '11, PPAG do indeed do something...

PPAG write to the Council suggesting a 'joint action'.

Do any of you have a sense of deja vu?

And when the Council reply in April '11 that no, as previously explained, they have no intention of going to court, PPAG leap into action.

They wait 3 months before launching a legal action.

The legal action they'd been threatening for over two and a half years.

[seanie]

I think that pattern of events isn't so much mora, aquiescence and taciturnity.

It's more taking the piss.

[Betty Windsor]

[Makaveli]

But nobody uses the park.

And this 'poorest section of the community' that you are on about can they not get themselves down to the Figgy park which has something for everyone?

[Betty Windsor]

[seanie]

I think we've been through an exhaustive and thorough process.

There was a extensive consultation on site options, involving the community, after which the democratically elected Cllrs selected the site. There was a long prioritisation process, again open to public input. There was a lengthy pre-planning consultation and then a planning process during which more local people supported than objected to the proposals.

And at no time did the Council 'promise' to provide compensatory land. The decided to investigate the possibility of compensatory land being provided prior to the proposals going ahead, albeit informed by an assessment of the usage of the park and loss of amenity. As it turned out there were no suitable sites for compensation, and given the low usage of the existing park it was decided that amenity could be retained and enhanced by improvements, but the Council has still kept the idea of compensatory open space up for consideration, including the existing school site.

It's more a question of what land becomes available when, and whether it's cost effective. And they didn't want to delay a much needed new school waiting on that.

[Makaveli]

If they can get from Magdalene and Christians to Porty Park they can get themselves to Figgy Park.

Your argument would hold more water were it not for the fact that everytime I go past Porty Park there is no-one on it.

[seanie]

[Betty Windsor]

[wangi]

It's not seanie's argument - it's what has been committed to during the planning process.

[seanie]

It's not an argument. It's simply what's been clearly stated as the intention, as a matter of public record.

[Porty]

[rathbone]

[Epykat]

[Porty]

I'm going to start a Seashell speculation thread.

[Porty]

[Porty]

[Epykat]

[Puerto bella]