| Topic: | Complaint Re:Standards - Cllr Bell - "The Sahota Affair" | |
| Posted by: | Victor Mishiku | |
| Date/Time: | 09/10/13 19:44:00 |
| Having heard nothing from Ms Helen Harris Head of Legal Services or her staff, I wrote earlier today to all the three other leaders (there is no point writing to the Labour Leader as he is the party being complained about, or to our GLA Member for Ealing - the cause of all this unrest) as well as copying in The Chief Executive, Ealing Broadway Ward Councillors, Ms Helen Harris, Mr Noel Rutherford Director of the Environment Group, Ms Aileen Jones Head of Planning, Ms Alex Jackson Senior Planning Manager and others plus The Investigator dealing with the first Complaint made by Cllr. Benjamin Dennehy. Please note my Formal Complaint dated 7th October 2013 included the e-mails that were addressed "Dear Julian" "Best Wishes, Onkar" etc about the intended development planning application and I suspect that there may be others - none of which were on the planning files when I inspected them. I have never heard of any other case in Ealing or anywhere else where ordinary residents can summon up not only the Leader of the Council (who is not a Ward Councillor either in Southall where Dr Sahota lives or in Castlebar Road where Dr Sahota's latest acquisition awaits butchery) but also the Director of the Environment Group, Mr Noel Rutherford. Mr Nick Black of 33 Woodville Road was made to wait 12 days before seeing a "humble" duty planning officer, who then told him that he could not discuss the application Plans in any event but merely give general advice! We have heard suggested by Dr Sahota that this is merely a "political" effort to discredit Cllr. Bell/Dr Sahota. Dr Sahota questions whether the refusal of his planning application at Committee on 13th March 2013 was for political reasons rather than planning grounds - even though out of the 10 Committee Members, only 5 Members were from the Conservative Party, the main opposition party here in Ealing. There was no UKIP Councillor on the Committee. 4 Labour Members voted against the application and these were Councillors who all admitted knowing and working with Dr Sahota in his political campaigning. How then was the refusal of the planning application a "political" decision? Is Dr Sahota suggesting that Members of his own party who supported him at the elections deliberately voted his application down for some unknown reason(s)? ----- Original Message ----- From: Mettcm To: Benjamin Dennehy ; david.millican@ealing.gov.uk ; Gary Malcolm ; Harrish@ealing.gov.uk ; Martin Smith ; Noel Rutherford ; Aileen JONES ; Alex JACKSON Cc: alex.oram@chi-assoc.com ; Rbarnes@hillingdon.gov.uk ; andrew.Steed@ealing.gov.uk ; roseh@ealing.gov.uk ; Nigel.Bakhai@ealing.gov.uk ; ANGUSJHUCK@aol.com ; Ian Potts ; Anthony.Young@ealing.gov.uk ; David.Scott@ealing.gov.uk ; alan@grampa.demon.co.uk ; Moira Black/Robert Gurd ; 'Will French' ; gtcphelan@hotmail.com ; jjaafar@sky.com ; AnthonyRoden@gmail.com ; ebringerw5@Yahoo.co.uk ; Alex Hawran ; Tracy Evans ; tessaleverton@doctors.org.uk ; Naz Ghanadian ; nadia hajian ; Hazel@talbot68.plus.com ; Laurence Read ; Anthony Lewis ; Stephen Rodney ; mona@monaarshi.com ; James Clifford ; karie clifford ; Michael Russell ; jamesgates@trinitysouth.co.uk ; edit@ealinggazette.co.uk ; Editor ; O'Connell, Steve ; Angie4ealingacton@googlemail.com ; hugo.sutherland@parliament.uk ; Gerald Moran Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2013 1:27 PM Subject: Complaint dated 7th October 2013 Cllr. Benjamin Dennehy Cllr. David Millican Cllr. Gary Malcolm Dear Councillors, On 7th October 2013 by e-mail and by hand-delivery, I submitted my 8-page Formal Complaint to Ms Helen Harris, Head of Legal Services, LBE. Please see attached Pdf file together with a scanned file containing Censored E-Mails addressed informally between "Julian" and "Onkar" dated 17/10/12 - 21/12/12. These (and possibly other intervening e-mails as yet undisclosed) were not on the planning files when I last inspected them. I have posted links to these documents on the Ealing Forum, where there is a special topic about this planning case on which there have been almost 190 comments to date - the most in the entire Forum since a controversial case in Acton a few years ago, which Mr Rutherford will remember. As a matter of law, all background documents relied on by a Council in relation to a planning application are supposed to be publicly available for a minimum period of 4 years from the day of the Committee Meeting under the provisions of the "Access to Information Act" (1985). I await an acknowledgment from Ms Harris who implied that she did not approve of the layout and questioning format of my previous Complaint (July/August 2013) and therefore refused to process it. Consequently, I completely revised the layout and changed its interrogatory format to make it crystal clear to Ms Harris exactly what I am talking about. That said, I wonder how some of the Polish residents that I have helped in Newburgh Road in Acton W3 in complicated Landlord/Tenant Court Hearings (as a litigation friend) and who can barely write a letter in English would have satisfied Ms Harris's stringent requirements as to letter-writing and presentation? I also attach Dr Onkar Singh Sahota's letter to the "Ealing & Acton Gazette" published on 26th July 2013 in which he suggests that Councillors may have refused his planning application for 43 Castlebar Road, Ealing W5 for political reasons. Dr Sahota (who originally applied under the name "Dr Sahota Onkar") said: "I hope the councillors on the committee judged it purely on planning grounds rather than seeking to gain political advantage but who knows". The Planning Committee comprises a built-in advantage for whichever Party is running the Council. On political voting, the Labour Group can pass any application through in any event. The Chair(man) also has an extra vote if there is a tie (should one of the Labour group abstain or miss the voting for some reason). One of the Councillors said that he had campaigned for Dr Sahota in the GLA Elections and several others said that they had worked with him but they all said that his planning application had not been privately discussed, etc. 10 Councillors voted against the application on the night of 13th March 2013. 3 Councillors abstained (no reasons given). Out of these 10 Councillors who voted against, only 5 were Conservative, the main opposition Party in Ealing. I have previously sought assistance from my Ward Councillors to bring this matter to the attention of the Local Government Ombudsman but, as mentioned, I am now awaiting Ms Harris's response to my fresh Formal Complaint as to whether this is to be duly processed by the Council? Yours sincerely Victor Mishiku 9/10/13 Attachments: 4 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The attachments can all be seen at the following URL Download References: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14377445/FormalComplaint_7thOctober2013.pdf [FORMAL COMPLAINT 7th Oct 2013] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14377445/Q2%20redacted%20and%20scanned.pdf [LBE-CENSORED E-MAILS] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14377445/ForumMessage_8thOct2013.pdf [FORUM MESSAGE 8/10/13] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14377445/YourLettersSahota_26thJuly2013068.pdf [DR SAHOTA'S LETTER TO THE PRESS 26/7/13] |