Councillors ‘misled’ in Milton Keynes neighbour-on-neighbour barn barney – claim

Emberton resident Andy McGrandle has carried out a dogged campaign to find out why Milton Keynes Council planners did not give written advice to the committee over the option to take criminal action.

Mr McGrandle told a committee this week that planners had not been told that demolishing the barn without planning permission would be a criminal offence, and that this could not be granted after the barn at Mounts House had been demolished.

Referring to the criminal aspect as the “elephant in the room” Mr McGrandle said “You won’t find a single occurrence of the phrase in reports to the various meetings of the development control committee (DCC).

“This is how the DCC were misled; it is a very serious matter.”

Wednesday’s meeting of the scrutiny management committee received a report from Myles Joyce, the council’s interim service development manager in response to Mr McGrandle’s claims.

In it he said: “Demolition of a building within a conservation area is a criminal offence.”

But he continued: “Enforcement action is intended to be remedial rather than punitive and should always be commensurate with the breach of planning control to which it relates.”

He reiterated a point made at previous meetings that the council believes it took the most appropriate course of action.

Mr McGrandle took recognition of a criminal offence as being a breakthrough that made the elephant in the room bigger.

He has lodged Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to get to the bottom of the issue.

But all his requests over the course of a year were refused, so he took the issue to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

He added: “Surprisingly two weeks ago I received the document I’ve been trying to get for a year.

“And this proved that data was held, that notification was given and at least one telephone call made.”

Mr McGrandle said that the “ICO case is likely to be proved in the next few weeks and I’m still waiting on a few outstanding documents.”

Mr Joyce’s report, referring to the freedom of information request, said “some records, which relate to correspondence between enforcement and the applicant in late 2019, had not been updated to the enforcement case file at the time the FoI request was submitted.”

After the Local Government Ombudsman found against the council for the way it failed to keep a record of documents, Mr Joyce said it has improved its administration.

At Wednesday’s meeting, the committee agreed to defer considering the matter in full until they are able to see all the information.

The ICO confirmed that it is looking at an FoI complaint in relation to Mount House. But as it is ongoing it wouldn’t comment further at this stage.