| Topic: | Re:Dr Onkar Sahota's application in Haven Green rejected | |
| Posted by: | Judith Jaafar | |
| Date/Time: | 21/07/13 22:31:00 |
Amongst many distinct oddities in this whole planning application, amply highlighted in previous postings by myself and Victor Mishiku of The Covenant Movement, the one that I'm grappling with now is the Borough Solicitor's decision to bring in an independent investigator to scrutinise Cllr. Julian Bell's behaviour. Whilst superficially this may look like a swift and righteous move by Helen Harris, if we take a slightly closer look at this initiative we discover the usual smoke and mirrors employed by some local government institutions, (and no doubt national government for that matter too). Ms. Harris's choice of Ms. Fiona Ledden seems, to those in the know, to be completely predictable, as she appears to be the "go to" person for this sort of thing. She may indeed be very skilled at investigating her civil and public servant colleagues. However, in this case, her appointment cannot in any way be justified, on a conflict of interest basis, or at very least an impression of such. Councillor Bell sits as the chair of the WLA, the West London Alliance, an inter-borough organisation that appears to have been initiated by LBE, from what I can glean from their website. Fiona Ledden from LB Brent is also listed as a member of this organisation, as the Legal and Procurement officer. It is entirely possible that Cllr. Bell, as set-up chairman, may have appointed Ms. Ledden to this role himself, but I cannot be sure of that. What we might reasonably assume, however, is that these two people know each, likely work with each other and sit as officials in the same organisation. How can one, with any hope of unbiased transparency, be tasked to investigate the other (especially in this instance her eminent superior)? This type of issue should, and must, be dealt with by someone completely outside of Ealing and the WLA, indeed outwith local government altogether. Normal procedure in this instance would dictate that the Borough Solicitor engage the services of a completely independent barrister or QC. I shall be writing about this to my MP, the Mayor and to local and national newspapers. I might, under other circumstances, have contacted my London Assembly member, as has been done fruitfully in other cases where the local Council was not listening to residents, but can hardly do so in this case, for obvious reasons - Dr. Sahota is my London Assembly member. The whole Dr. Sahota planning application is turning into a farcical disgrace. The first inkling we had that Planning Services was less than ethical and transparent was way back in March when they wrote up their favourable-to-Dr.Sahota shambles of a Report long before the public consultation period had elapsed. I was so exercised by this, and afraid that our objection letters would not even be looked at (and they were certainly not a part of the report to committee recommendation) that I contacted the Borough Solicitor's office by email, pointing out that there had been serious breaches of trust and glaring procedural irregularities. I was contacted by Jackie Adams from Helen Harris's office, as she is the person appointed to deal with property and planning matters. She assured me that all letters and objections sent into the Council, even after the Report had been prepared, and after our case officer had just "left", would be delivered to the councillors on the Planning Committee in good time. In the event, Mr.Mishiku hand-delivered information packs to all the councillors via the internal mail bag, just in case but I have subsequently learned that all that is done is that a briefing note summary is made by the planners and circulated to councillors a couple of hours before the start of the committee meeting and in our case, it was very scant, quickly brushing aside the detailed objections made. But the whole point of my email to Legal Services had been ignored and just brushed under the carpet - the procedural irregularities and unethical behaviour. At that time, of course, little did we know just how many "irregularities" we would eventually uncover, and how many more we may yet find. It's shocking, the whole affair. Incompetence? Deliberate obfuscation? Abuse of pubic office? Who knows, unless we have a proper, independent investigation led by a total outsider. |