Just maybe Mr P should spend more time on his own job. Maybe he should be asking himself why Welwyn Hatfield Council has to tiptoe around unauthorised “temporary B&B accommodation for gypsies and travellers”, according to Welwyn Hatfield Council’s planning officer Richard Aston.
If the local residents had their way, they might prefer to see one of their number permitted to build a granny annexe and Mr Rooney's caravans booted off his land.
Local referism certainly has a part to play here. Indeed, councillors wanted the caravans off the land. But the council is fearful of expensive court action if they put a procedural foot wrong.
So this is not about local democracy, it is about the planning system frustrating democracy, and that is the responsibility of Eric Pickles and his ministers and officials.
Rossendale Council has decided to save £92,000 a year by stopping some doorstep refuse collections. Now, they seem to have chosen a cack-handed way to implement it. But evidently the proposal breaks no law. "Local authorities are legally obliged to collect household rubbish but not to collect it at the doorstep", The Telegraph tells us. Of course residents losing the doorstep service will not receive a council tax rebate.
Now, if you polled the locals on how they would like to save the money, doorstep refuse collection would probably come way down the list. This is a case where local referism should surely come into play beforehand, rather than the residents having to band together and petition their
But why isn't the duty of doorstep refuse collection written into law? Who might be the minister responsible for allowing this?
Step forward, tribune of the people Eric Pickles.
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