Why did Wirral Council’s planning department send out a decision letter about 3 marquees at Thornton Manor with no planning conditions?

Why did Wirral Council’s planning department send out a decision letter about 3 marquees at Thornton Manor with no planning conditions?

Why did Wirral Council’s planning department send out a decision letter about 3 marquees at Thornton Manor with no planning conditions?

Cllr Phil Gilchrist (Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group) speaking at the Extraordinary meeting of Wirral Council to discuss Girtrell Court 4th April 2016
Cllr Phil Gilchrist (front) who chaired the Planning Committee meeting in 2010 that approved the application (photo is from 4th April 2016)

Published to very little fanfare yesterday, was a supplementary agenda containing a 12 page report to Wirral Council’s Planning Committee that meets on the 20th July 2017 starting at 6.00 pm in the Civic Hall at Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, Seacombe, CH44 8ED.

It’s about the ongoing saga that are the marquees at Thornton Manor. In April 2010 Wirral Council received a planning application for the erection of three marquees within the Thornton Manor estate (referred to as The Dell, The Walled Garden and The Lake). These locations are in the greenbelt.

A Planning Committee held on the 21st July 2010 agreed to a site visit that was then held. There were petitions both against and in favour of the planning application being approved.

On the 7th September 2010, the Planning Committee met and approved it (on a 7:5 vote) subject to 10 planning conditions, a section 106 agreement and a referral to the Government Office of the North West.

The planning conditions ranged from no fireworks between January and July, the permission being only for five years from the date of the decision notice, the erection of a noise barrier and seven other conditions (that are detailed in the report).

Wirral Council then negotiated a section 106 agreement with the applicant and in May 2011 a draft decision notice (detailing all the conditions) was included with the draft section 106 agreement for signing by the applicant. This was published on Wirral Council’s website.

A further draft decision notice (listing all the conditions) was sent out in September 2011.

The final section 106 agreement was signed and sealed on the 11th November 2011.

At this point, a letter should’ve been sent to the applicant stating that the application was approved and listing the conditions (but wasn’t).

A letter was sent on the 20th December 2011 to the applicant stating that the planning application was approved (but listing no conditions whatsoever)!

This letter went out in the name of Kevin Adderley* (who at the time was the senior manager in charge of that section of Wirral Council). Just because it went out in Kevin Adderley’s name doesn’t mean he’d have had sight of it, just that he was paid for political accountability to politicians for what happened.

*Early retirement for Kevin Adderley was agreed in 2015 by a majority vote of councillors at a cost of £296,229.

This decision notice letter was received by the applicant on the 21st December 2011.

Then Wirral Council sought legal advice and were told that the grant of permission was the letter (without conditions) sent on the 20th December 2011.

Wirral Council cannot enforce the original conditions (agreed by the Planning Committee) as they weren’t in the decision notice letter and only what was in the section 106 agreement.

Another update to the Planning Committee will be given in August 2017 about Wirral Council’s view on whether the section 106 agreement is being complied with.

In the report Wirral Council state, “It has been impossible to identify whether this incident was a system error, human error or a combination of both.

In other words the report author doesn’t really know why it happened! In future Wirral Council does promise that a senior manager or Team Leader will read all decision notices before they are posted to the applicant!

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.

EXCLUSIVE: 10 more invoices paid by Wirral Council including £3,203.88 for budget setting and £15,667.25 for a special guardianship order

EXCLUSIVE: 10 more invoices paid by Wirral Council including £3,203.88 for budget setting and £15,667.25 for a special guardianship order

EXCLUSIVE: 10 more invoices paid by Wirral Council including £3,203.88 for budget setting and £15,667.25 for a special guardianship order

                                                           

Below this are ten invoices paid for by Wirral Council during the 2013/14 financial year. The first is for £15,276.96 from Eversheds for the ever cryptic “governance and employment issues”. As it’s paid for by Wirral Council’s HR department it’ll be for employment issues and the Wirral Council reference is down as “Jim Wilkie”. This in itself is a bit odd as it’s for work done in February 2013, as Jim Wilkie retired on the 7th June 2012.

Next is an invoice from Eversheds, but for £3,203.88 for “Budget setting”. Again this is odd as the Wirral Council reference is down as “Bill Norman” and it is for work done in February 2013. Bill Norman however was made redundant by Wirral Council on the 30th September 2012 (through a compromise contract costing Wirral Council £151,416). So Bill Norman wouldn’t have had anything to do with the setting of the budget in February 2013.

The third and fourth invoices are from Weightmans for £4,976.64 & £4,482. I think this are for legal advice about Birkenhead regeneration connected to the plans that Wirral Council’s Cabinet recently agreed to consult on involving Neptune Developments Limited.

Moving to another regeneration project, the fifth invoice is for £8,133.90 for legal advice around a section 106 agreement connected to the Wirral Waters planning application. I’m puzzled about why this invoice was sent directly to Peel and the confusing VAT which was added to the total amount, then taken off it!

Invoice six is another Weightmans invoice for £1,668 for EU procurement advice. The next invoice is from Eversheds and is for £1,720.68 of employment advice. Eversheds also submitted another invoice for £4,811.74 for advice in March 2013 on “governance and employment issues“. As the HR department paid the invoice I think it can safely be assumed it was for an employment issue.

The ninth invoice from Seatons Solicitors is for work on a special guardianship order and is for £15,667.25. The last invoice for £1,660.80 is from DMM Psychology Limited for a cognitive functioning report and psychological reports (although this is for a quarter of the total amount as its being split four ways).

Wirral Council invoice Eversheds £15276.96 15th March 2013
Wirral Council invoice Eversheds £15276.96 15th March 2013
Wirral Council invoice Eversheds £3203.88 15th March 2013
Wirral Council invoice Eversheds £3203.88 15th March 2013
Wirral Council invoice Weightmans £4976.64 27th Match 2013
Wirral Council invoice Weightmans £4976.64 27th Match 2013
Wirral Council invoice Weightmans £4482 2nd April 2013
Wirral Council invoice Weightmans £4482 2nd April 2013
Wirral Council invoice Eversheds £8133.90 15th April 2013
Wirral Council invoice Eversheds £8133.90 15th April 2013
Wirral Council invoice Weightmans £1668 28th February 2013
Wirral Council invoice Weightmans £1668 28th February 2013
Wirral Council invoice Eversheds £1720.68 5th April 2013
Wirral Council invoice Eversheds £1720.68 5th April 2013
Wirral Council invoice Eversheds £4811.74 8th April 2013
Wirral Council invoice Eversheds £4811.74 8th April 2013
Wirral Council invoice Seatons £15667.65 25th March 2013
Wirral Council invoice Seatons £15667.65 25th March 2013
Wirral Council invoice DMM Psychology Ltd £6643.20 8th May 2013
Wirral Council invoice DMM Psychology Ltd £6643.20 8th May 2013

If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.

3 invoices about the Wirral Waters Section 106 agreement with Peel which raises a VAT question?

3 invoices about the Wirral Waters Section 106 agreement with Peel which raises a VAT question?

3 invoices about the Wirral Waters Section 106 agreement with Peel which raises a VAT question?

                                                    

I’d better start this piece by declaring an interest in that I can see the Wirral Waters site from where I live as it’s not that far away.

Below are three invoices that however many times I look at them don’t make much sense to me. However maybe through writing about them I can make more sense of them. I may have this wrong, so if I have please leave a comment as elements from one invoice appear on the other ones so maybe I’m not counting things correctly.

All three are from Eversheds LLP (a firm of solicitors) with an office in Manchester. I’ll put them in chronological order:

20/2/13 Interim Invoice | Wirral Waters Section 106 agreement (to November 2012) | £10,000 + VAT £2,000 = £12,000 | £10,000 paid by Peel Land and Property (Ports) Limited | £2,000 paid by Wirral Council (VAT element)

15/4/13 Interim Invoice | Wirral Waters Section 106 agreement (to November 2012) | £8,133.90 + VAT £1,617.58 = £9,751.48 | £8,133.90 paid by Peel Land and Property (Ports) Limited | £1,617.58 to be paid by Wirral Council (VAT element)

29/4/13 Invoice | Wirral Waters Section 106 agreement (28 June 2011 to 31 July 2012) | £8,000 + VAT £1,577.20 = £9.577.20 | £8,000 paid by Peel Land and Property (Ports) Limited | £1,577.20 to be paid by Wirral Council (VAT element)

Total (across three invoices) paid by Peel Land and Property (Ports) Limited: £10,000 + £8,133.90 + £8,000 = £26,133.90
Total (across three invoices) paid by Wirral Council : £2,000 + £1,617.58 + £1,577.20 = £5,194,78

Which leads me to the obvious question about VAT. When a developer such as Peel Land and Property (Ports) Limited have a legal firm (in this case Eversheds) to draw up a section 106 agreement between themselves (Peel Land and Property (Ports) Limited) and Wirral Council, why does Wirral Council pay the VAT?

I’m not an accountant, so maybe somebody out there with a better understanding of the tax code and VAT issues can help me! Please leave a comment if you understand this better than me!

Wirral Waters section 106 agreement interim invoice Wirral Council 20th February 2013 £12000
Wirral Waters section 106 agreement interim invoice Wirral Council 20th February 2013 £12000
Wirral Waters section 106 agreement interim invoice Peel Land and Property (Ports) Limited 15th April 2013 £9751 48p
Wirral Waters section 106 agreement interim invoice Peel Land and Property (Ports) Limited 15th April 2013 £9751 48p
Wirral Waters section 106 agreement invoice Wirral Council 29th April 2013 £9577 20p
Wirral Waters section 106 agreement invoice Wirral Council 29th April 2013 £9577 20p

If you click on any of these buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this with other people

Planning Committee 30th May 2013 (Wirral Council): Vote on new play area in Leasowe splits Planning Committee 7:6

Planning Committee 30th May 2013 (Wirral Council): Vote on new play area in Leasowe splits Planning Committee 7:6f

Planning Committee 30th May 2013 (Wirral Council): Vote on new play area in Leasowe splits Planning Committee 7:6

                                                                                                                                                                

If there was ever a part of a meeting that sums up both the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of Wirral Council, item 12 (and its appendix) would serve very well.

It all started as usual with an officer saying it would’ve been decided by officers under their delegated powers if Cllr Lewis hadn’t asked for it to be decided by the Planning Committee (however with a qualifying petition against it and nine letters of objection it would’ve been decided by the Planning Committee anyway). The officer continued by stating that the planning application was for a children’s play area comprising five items and dated back to a 1997 agreement with a developer building a new housing estate. The area proposed for the play area was part of an area of open space established for the residents, residents had concerns, but environmental health had no objections to the proposal despite the area being a flood risk.

A representative of the petitioners, Steven Lindsay of 5 Aintree Close thanked the Planning Committee for attending the site visit on the day before the meeting. He pointed out it had been sixteen years since the original agreement for the play area had been signed and that since then many families had grown up, he referred to a survey conducted eighteen months ago of one hundred and forty-seven properties. Ninety percent had been against the play area, six and half percent for and three and a half percent hadn’t expressed a preference. Mr. Lindsay referred to another brand-new play area nearby which was well used by children and a further play area that had been built as the result of a section 106 agreement with a developer.

The concerns of the petitioners were of vandalism, theft of the play area equipment, antisocial behaviour and people gathering there who were not from the area. Another concern was that the site of the proposed play area was too close to adjoining properties and that a nearby play area had had equipment stolen. Two other play areas at a distance of 200m and 300m were nearby as well as Leasowe Common.

Miss Jackie Smallwood, of Wirral Council’s Parks and Countryside Service addressed the committee on behalf of Wirral Council. She said that when the section 106 application had been granted that the policy had been twenty metres from property boundaries, however the policy had since changed to ten metres to property boundaries and twenty metres from the facade of buildings.

Cllr Ian Lewis agreed with the petitioner Mr. Lindsay and said it was unusual to have a planning application for a play area. He pointed out it had been sixteen years since the section 106 agreement and that since then they’d spent £75,000 on a play area as part of the Playbuilder scheme whose catchment area included this estate. He pointed out that in a further change that 23,000m² of the public open space had been sold, leaving 5,000m² and that the appendix pointed out that as a condition of the planning permission that the developer was to provide 60m² of open space per a property. He asked why the land left was well below the recommended limit of 60m²? In a survey of every home in the development by Taylor Wimpey, ninety percent of residents had been against it. As Wirral Council was the applicant, he said that they had nothing to lose and that they had to recognise the cost of maintaining a particularly small play area which was not wanted as Wirral Council would be taking on a further liability. He asked the Planning Committee to refuse the application. He passed around details of the sale of some of the public open space.

Cllr Elderton said that the petitioner and ward councillor had shown that times had changed, that the site visit had shown it was in an established residential area and the evidence of the petitioner showed that the residents would prefer not to have it developed as a play area. He suggested that they refuse the application on the grounds that it was no longer necessary. Cllr Elderton also pointed out the fact that as the Council was the applicant that it couldn’t sue itself and that they should go along with what residents want.

Matthew Davies said that the original permission (OUT/1994/6791/D) had been granted sixteen years ago and that the Planning Committee in August 2011 had revisited the issue. He said that the developer had paid money for the installation of a play area, which had been approved in 1997 and 2011, therefore the play area could be erected under permitted development, however the developer had wanted the details to be considered as a standalone item. If they refused the planning permission, they would have to reimburse £50,000 plus interest which would come to £75,000. Officers had assessed the existing play areas and felt that they were not acceptable or accessible as they were separated from the development by busy roads.

Cllr Steve Foulkes said that the training that councillors on the Planning Committee had received meant that they should consider each planning application on its merits, without any consideration as to the applicant. He said he hadn’t been a member of the Planning Committee back in 2011 and that whilst a survey had taken place that they had to be ultra careful if they were turning it down for this reason. Cllr Foulkes pointed out that the nature of the estate might change, that it was a “viable planning application” and that the play area “might well be seen as an asset”. He said he understood there were fears and pessimism, but if they went down that route then there wouldn’t be any play areas. Cllr Foulkes said that it was a bit of a cop-out that the Council wouldn’t appeal its own decision, that he had seen the site and location and that areas that were well looked at and overseen didn’t tend to attract antisocial behaviour. Cllr Foulkes asked “Is it a good thing?” and then answered his own question with the answer being “probably yes”.

Cllr Simon Mountney said it was reminding him of the George Orwell novel 1984 and that [Cllr Foulkes] was sounding like the Politburo. He pointed out that the residents wanted them to spend the money elsewhere and enforcing a play area on them was not right. Cllr Mountney referred to the “massive consultation”, the result had told them “please don’t give us” [a play area] with the public telling us [the Planning Committee] “thanks but no thanks”. Cllr Mountney said that they couldn’t make an assumption over the nature of the estate over twenty years. He received applause for his points.

Cllr Wendy Clements said that at 4.9 in the report, that before development progressed Wirral Council would have to consult the local community, therefore public opposition to the scheme was a material consideration in determining the planning application.

Cllr Elderton said he agreed with Cllr Wendy Clements, that times had changed and they had to make sure it was appropriate. He pointed out that things had moved on from sixteen years ago and that he’d been on the Planning Committee in 2011. Cllr Elderton said they should consider the current position rather than bury their heads in the sand. He said that he didn’t like to see councillors overturn the will of the local community to merely support something from sixteen years ago and that wasn’t the reason why he’d become a councillor. Cllr Elderton said they should support the aspirations of all local communities.

Matthew Davies said that the appendix had come as a report to the Planning Committee in 2011 and that they’d heard the comments from petitioners and Cllr Ian Lewis then, which was more recent than sixteen years ago. He cautioned them against refusing permission and that the permission granted sixteen years ago could take twenty, thirty or forty years before it was built. Mr. Davies said that as it had been approved it could be built without further consent which they needed to be aware of.

Cllr Mountney said they were there to support residents. The Chair, Cllr Bernie Mooney said they were there to uphold planning policy and that the policy was still the same.

Cllr Mountney asked who was going to build the playground? Matthew Davies said that as the developer had made the contribution that the Council would put the play equipment in place. Cllr Mountney expressed concern that they were “riding roughshod over the public”. The Chair, Cllr Bernie Mooney said it had to be agreed and that the only reason it was back here was to approve the type, amount and the age group.

Cllr Foulkes asked if it was refused, would the old planning permission take precedence leaving it as a decision for the Executive [Cabinet]?

Cllr Hayes referred to the 60m² of open space per a resident and asked a question about commuted sums and the section 106 agreement. Matthew Davies answered that it was something to consider when drafting the section 106 agreement whether or not to accept commuted sums, which could be used to upgrade existing facilities, however when it was drafted in 1997 they decided not to go for a commuted sum. He said the fact the land was sold had no bearing as the green space and play area were separate issues.

Cllr Muspratt said it was quite compact and had concerns about the guidelines on different age groups mixing. Matthew Davies said there were guidelines but they were outside the planning remit. He said that colleagues in parks and leisure tended to put an upper age limit of twelve on play areas as this was when people tended to stop using them.

Cllr Brightmore said that the residents were asking them to refuse the application. Matthew Davies said they could refuse this application as it was a standalone application, therefore they could refuse this specific play area. Cllr Wittingham referred to the petition of twenty-nine households but said he would be uncomfortable to refuse the application as it would mean children would have to cross Reeds Lane.

Cllr Stuart Wittingham moved accepting the planning permission and Cllr Joe Walsh seconded it. Cllr Foulkes said he didn’t enjoy councillors trying to make a fool of him. He said that he didn’t like being set up or being pilloried.

The Chair asked for a vote of those in favour of the planning permission. Cllr Stuart Kelly, Cllr Bernie Mooney, Cllr Brightmore, Cllr Christina Muspratt, Cllr Joe Walsh, Cllr Stuart Wittingham and Cllr Irene Williams vote for (7).

The other councillors (6) voted against, so the planning application was approved by 7 votes to 6.