Giant warehouse saga "makes a mockery" of entire planning permission process in Milton Keynes, says councillor

Cllr John Bint's denunciation come after last week's reports of a judge ruling that MK Council unlawfully gave incomplete information to residents about what its planning officers said and did over the Blakelands warehouse protest.

The judge was speaking follow a hearing of the general regulatory chamber tribunal.

A resident had launched the successful action on behalf of the Blakelands Residents Association, which has been trying for years to discover why MK Council gave permission for the 18m tall warehouse being built behind homes in Yeoman’s Drive.

Today Cllr Bint, who is the Conservative spokesman for planning, has slammed the council and given his view on the way the Blakelands saga could affect the entire city.

These are in words, published in full:

"We learn from the Judge's ruling on the Blakelands FOI appeal that MK Council has unlawfully given incomplete information to residents and the Information Commissioner about what council officers said and did, over the Blakelands Warehouse. We also learn that the management input to the appeal was in support of the officer wrong-doing rather than in support of local people and their legal entitlement to learn the truth about what happened.

We learn, from the council's explanation/excuse to the Judge about why some information couldn't be supplied, that some important information on this topic has been "lost" or deleted by officers, although emails from the same officers over the same period on other subjects are available. This should not have happened!

We also learn that the council has a different explanation/excuse for why some records of Enforcement investigations couldn't be supplied to residents and the court. The council claims that its officers often didn't create any records of their investigations into alleged breaches of planning control, even though it's a pretty basic expectation of the job that detailed, written records would be made (and kept safely).

For the last year and a half, residents and councillors have been assured, repeatedly by very senior officers right at the top of MK Council, that an investigation by external consultant Mr Dorfman (into the Planning Service's handling of the Blakelands planning & enforcement issues) was being managed by the council's Audit function rather than the Planning service. Recently, thanks to the diligence of some councillors, it has emerged that these assurances were not true, and that Mr Dorfman's work and his contract are being managed by the very department he's supposed to be independently investigating. Paperwork showing the contractual arrangements and the outcome of a meeting between Mr Dorfman and council officers (including the director for planning) to agree the scope of the Dorfman review has been kept secret from residents and councillors for some 18 months and has only recently been made available.

It has also recently emerged that a considerable number of relatively senior officers, across more than one branch of the council, have known right from the beginning that Mr Dorfman's work was being set and managed by the Director for Planning. All these officers seem to have remained silent throughout this entire period over the factually incorrect information being given to councillors and residents by Cabinet Members and by the most senior officers in the council. Collectively, this amounts to a systematic deception and cover-up of the nature of Mr Dorfman's appointment.

From Mr Dorfman's preliminary findings, we learn that officers presented seriously distorted information to councillors determining planning applications, to use Mr Dorfman's words, repeatedly ("again") "over-flattering" the proposed development. From a case in the Olney ward, we've learned about missing records of investigations. From a case in Willen, we've learned that crucial facts and measurements presented to DCC in late 2019 were incorrect, because the information the council subsequently presented to a Planning Inspector had different measurements in. From a case in Walnut Tree, there are questions yet to be answered about how the target density of housing for a small site was changed between successive drafts of a policy document. For a case in Furzton, questions are yet to be answered about whether officers presented measurements to DCC as facts, despite not having measured the distances, and despite knowing neighbours disputed the measurements supplied by the Applicant (the home-owner applying for planning permission).

I believe it is unacceptable that the council is withholding and/or mis-stating information that should have been made fully available to residents, individual Councillors, DCC and other committees, an Ombudsman, and an Appeal Judge. The current situation makes a mockery of the entire planning permission process. It makes a mockery of enforcement, which is vital to maintaining public trust in the Planning system, according to the NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework). It makes a mockery of residents' rights to object to planning applications, if they can't trust that the committee will get balanced, truthful information from officers. And it makes a mockery of officers' obligations (in the Officer/Member Protocol and in their contracts of employment) to provide information to residents and councillors that is always truthful, balanced and complete.

The current situation makes a mockery of assurances from the Chief Exec and his Deputy, and from the Cabinet, that the Dorfman process is being managed at arm's length from the Department he is supposed to be investigating.

It is also disappointing that attempts to secure real answers for the residents of Blakelands through a comprehensive external audit have been blocked repeatedly by Labour and Lib Dem councillors both at Audit Committee and Full Council, effectively seeking to ensure the full scale of the planning failures aren't made public.

The information uncovered recently also makes a mockery of the Leader's public apology (16/12/2020) for the council's failings over Blakelands. It now looks like this apology was not so much a genuine attempt to acknowledge how much wrong-doings have actually been happening, and more a cynical attempt (by the Leader and the officers advising him) to distract attention from the issues still being concealed.

There are thousands of people all over Milton Keynes affected by council decisions on planning applications and enforcement action. Something dramatic needs to happen, to create a system that those residents will be able to trust, and where councillors making planning decision can trust the information put in front of them.

And when we learn that something has gone seriously wrong, residents all across MK - and the councillors who represent them - want to have a system that gets to the bottom of what has happened, learns the right lessons, and gives proper redress to the people affected. They don't need what we have seen here, multiple council errors causing injustice and suffering to local people, being obscured by cover-up on top of cover-up on top of cover-up."