Political opinion with Cllr Duncan Crow: Supporting residents should come before petty politics

The end of this week sees the government’s new Planning regulations take effect, that disenfranchises residents and councillors alike. The number of resident representations on any given planning application will no longer be taken into account when deciding if it will be determined at a planning committee in public, meaning that many more planning application decisions will be taken by planning officers behind closed doors. The right of councillors to be able to refer a planning application within their ward to their council’s planning committee is also being removed.      

This legislation directly affects local authorities, so it is no surprise that councils across the country are raising their concerns with the government, but alas, Crawley Borough Council will not be one of them. The true impact of this legislation will only become apparent when there is a planning application near you, and you suddenly find your voice greatly diminished.

This is not for want of trying by me and my Conservative Councillor colleagues in Crawley. In good faith, we tabled a motion for last week’s Full Council meeting in genuine hope that Labour Councillors, whose votes would be needed to get it to pass, could back it. We thought this was possible as some of them had complained about the impact of this legislation when it was previously discussed at the Council’s Governance Committee.

Unfortunately, it seems petty politics got in the way as every Labour Councillor voted against our motion, meaning it did not pass. On the Labour side of the council chamber, only their Leader spoke to our motion, giving a few excuses as to why they wouldn’t back it. Interestingly, this included saying that the government would not listen to us.

This was very disappointing as there is strength in numbers when local authorities seek to get government to change something adversely affecting them, and Crawley’s absence weakens that cause. I should also point out that while it has been Conservative Councillors across the country leading on this, there has been much cross-party support, which makes the Labour voting on this in Crawley look even more petty.