Last night we had a meeting of the Place Overview & Scrutiny Panel and it became very apparent that democracy is only really possible if you are a millionaire, perhaps a billionaire!
This is because the time required to understand things properly would require intensive, ongoing reading of the relevant documents to determine your argument, so daily work would be difficult to fit in alongside… and if you then wish to challenge you’re going to need a budget of circa £100,000 for each challenge you’d wish to bring!
The call in was about the South West Maidenhead Development Framework Supplementary Planning Document. A lengthy document, which is essentially a moving feast, making it difficult to pin down as it seemingly morphs to fit with current developer needs.
Three points were made in the call in but I’ll just focus on the first.
Members of the public have contacted their ward councillors to object that the time and place of the Cabinet meeting was not notified to the public lawfully. Part 4-16: Respect for article 6 human rights/presumption to favour openness of decision making. Consideration of legal implications.
The point here is simple. Would the average resident agree that placing a notice in a folder on the first floor of Maidenhead library constitutes it being “DISPLAYED”.
The legal officer said that while she saw nothing that could win a legal challenge about it being in the folder, as they also had it on the website, they would be improving the nature of notices by placing them on the physical notice board in the Town Hall from now on… thereby accepting it wasn’t perfect.
I did ask a question around “how many residents, who don’t use computers, would need to sign a document for it to be considered a challenge” and the answer was just one.
From what I understand, they would have to demonstrate that by not seeing the notice about the cabinet meeting it had caused them harm in some way. They would also have to take it to court for a judge to make a ruling… so they would have to be very sure of their words and have a significant legal budget.
The Magna Carta was about 12 of your peers sitting in judgement.
We shouldn’t need £100,000 and the process should simply be about what is seen to be fair by your peers with a nominal fee to cover running costs. But we are where we are…
There were 11 on the panel last night, 6 Conservative and 5 opposition. It’s called Overview & Scrutiny but the Conservative panel members are not going to find fault with what the cabinet decided “if they know what’s good for them” and so O&S is unlikely to ever find against the ruling party as they have the extra vote. The only way this could work is if there were 12 and the chair was from the opposition (as the chair has a deciding vote). But we are where we are…
Be careful who you vote for…
Thank you.
