Penybanc call-in request

There was a lively debate about the Penybanc planning decision on Radio Cymru's phone-in programme Taro'r Post earlier today, and Councillor Alun Davies (Plaid) has now contacted the Welsh Government to ask for the decision to be called in and reviewed.

As Councillor Davies points out in the statement below, the planning officers appear to have adopted an extraordinary pick 'n' mix approach to planning policy as they sought to railroad the scheme through. 

Cneifiwr does not normally go in for wholesale reproductions of press releases, but this one deserves to seen in full:

 Application decision ‘undermines integrity of planning policy’

Carmarthenshire County Councillor, Alun Davies, has expressed his deep concern at the decision of the county’s planning committee to approve an application for 289 properties in Penybanc, near Ammanford .  The approved application allows the development of 139 properties on top of the 150 limit set by local planning policy – the UDP.

An application for 336 properties was refused by the planning committee in December 2012 partly due to the number of properties and partly due to the impact the development would have on the Welsh language.

At a meeting of the planning committee last week authority planners told the committee that a reduction in the proposed number of properties to 289 (from 336) meant their concerns would not stand up to scrutiny.  

Local Plaid Cymru County Councillor, Alun Davies said:

“The decision reached by the planning committee has left a very bitter taste in the mouth.

“The current planning policy known as the UDP allows 150 properties to be built on the site.  But the report presented to the planning committee - to try and justify the development -  referenced a 250 property limit from the LDP document which is not yet planning policy.  

“The planning authority cannot be allowed to pass applications on the basis of policy that is not approved by the Planning Inspector or by the County Council itself.

“Council officers say the amended plans are now within the UDP – this may be the case in terms of geography but not in terms of property numbers.

“Members of the planning committee were told various tests and considerations would have been taken regarding the Welsh language when the UDP was approved and that their concerns on the language would not stand up to scrutiny.  I disagree entirely with this sentiment.

“Tests on the language may have been carried out on a potential 150 properties, but nothing has been done to measure the impact 289 properties would have.

“I had no hesitation in contacting the Welsh government and requesting this application is called-in so it can be looked at again”.

Rhodri Glyn Thomas added:

“I anticipate the first response of the Council leadership will be to criticise me for requesting the Welsh government calls in yet another planning application from Carmarthenshire Council.  I will not, however, be deterred from standing up for my constituents.

“There are fundamental concerns regarding the legitimate number of properties permitted in planning policy and the consequences the over-development could have on the Welsh language.  

“The application is almost double the limit allowed in the UDP and its approval completely undermines the integrity of local planning policy.  These are not issues I am prepared to ignore and why I have asked the Welsh government to look at the application.”

News round-up

Planning cover-up

Someone has obviously had words with Mr Thomas, the obstreperous neighbour of Trisha Breckman and her partner Eddie, following publication of pictures on this blog of the gigantic lorry trailer (or agricultural shelter in the view of the County Council's planning department) which has been parked alongside the cottage since the beginning of March.

The logo of Owens Road Services which sold the trailer to Mr Thomas has been partially obliterated with red paint:

Unfortunately for Mr Thomas, the Owens logo is already seeping through, and the Welsh climate will no doubt help to restore this gigantic advertising billboard to its pristine glory before long:

Legal costs

In other news, the Guardian reports that Mike Harris, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship and vice chair of Lewisham Council, submitted a Freedom of Information request to Carmarthenshire County Council asking how much County Hall had spent on the chief executive's recent libel action. The request was refused.

Propaganda news

The council's Freedom of Information section (which forms part of the chief executive's department) has clearly been busy recently. Another request asked for a breakdown of advertising receipts for one of the recent editions of Carmarthenshire News, the council's free hamster bedding service. According to the council, advertising revenue averages £18,000 per edition, but it was only able to supply copies of four invoices totalling £1,680. Two of the advertisements in question were placed by the St Catherine's Walk shopping centre and the Scarlets.


Bearing in mind that the County Council was recently unable to say when precisely the chief executive paid himself a £20,000 advance on his returning officer fees last year, and provided differing figures for the amount paid, the rather embarrassing discrepancy between claimed and actual advertising receipts for Carmarthenshire News raises the question of why Mr Justice Tugendhat was inclined to believe the council when it said that it had not paid the legal bills of its Head of Planning when he sued blogger Jacqui Thompson several years ago.

For those who haven't followed the libel case closely, a great deal of attention was paid in the most recent libel case to a mysterious document relating to the Bowen v Thompson case which carried the stamp of two separate council departments, one of which was Resources, the name given to the bit of the council which handles all the dosh and pays the bills.

The council was unable to explain how this document came to be in its possession, but was nevertheless confident that it had not paid Mr Bowen's court fees.

Local newspaper sales

Assuming that the County Council does eventually come up with a convincing explanation for the missing advertising revenue, the beleagured local press will be looking on in despair as the council's propaganda rag continues to drain away much needed advertising receipts.

Thanks to Robert Lloyd's Sir Gar Blog for drawing attention to the latest sales figures for the local and regional press. In the six months to the end of 2012 the Carmarthen Journal saw a further 12.3% drop, while the Llanelli Star and South Wales Guardian reported declines of 6.3% and 6.9% respectively.

Penybanc - the UDP and LDP Hokey Cokey

Diweddariad 4 Ebrill

Bydd y stad newydd ym Mhenybanc yn un o bynciau Taro'r Post heddiw. Tybed, a fydd y Cyngor yn cymryd rhan?

(A lively discussion can be expected on today's edition of Taro'r Post, Radio Cymru's phone-in programme, when the Penybanc development comes up).

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The battle over plans for a vast new housing development at Penybanc has come to an end, with several councillors performing a U-turn to approve the scheme despite very strong and near-unanimous opposition from local people and the reservations of various agencies consulted.

The developers, Guernsey-based Swallow Homes, amended its plan to build 336 homes on a site which extended beyond the boundary of the existing UDP, and has now been given permission to build 289 houses on a slightly reduced area of land.

Swallow originally sought and was given permission to build 141 homes on Tirychen Farm, but came to feel that it could pack in twice as many.

One of the strange aspects of this planning saga was the planning officers' logical acrobatics over differences between the county's existing Unitary Development Plan and the Local Development Plan which is due to replace it.

The existing UDP provided for a much lower density of housing. The planning officer's report says that the site was "part of an allocation for 150 new houses". The LDP, not yet in force, would have upped the allocation to 250 houses, and the planning officer argued this time round that the additional 39 houses were within tolerance levels.

In other words, the development has been scaled back to include land within the UDP, but has borrowed the allocation proposed in the LDP plus a whole chunk more.

The major concern expressed by councillors when they rejected the scheme back in December was the impact on the Welsh language. Back then the planners went to great lengths to dismiss the findings of two language impact assessments which concluded that the proposed development would have a negative impact on the language. Comments submitted by the now defunct Welsh Language Board came in for particular criticism.

The UDP stated that Supplementary Planning Guidance would be prepared to assist with the preparation and use of Linguistic Impact Assessments in the determination of planning applications.

Although the UDP was formally adopted in July 2006 and was several years in the making, the council has never got round to formulating any Supplementary Planning Guidance.

The proposed LDP, on the other hand, states that:

All developments will have regard to the needs and the interests of the Welsh language. Applicants will be expected to submit a Linguistic Impact Assessment or Statement as part of a planning application. Guidance for determining the effect of proposals on the Welsh language is contained within “Planning and the Welsh Language: The Way Ahead (2005)”. The document suggests that where 25% or more of the Community Council area speak Welsh then the language is part of the

social fabric. These areas are known as “linguistic sensitive areas”. More detailed guidance will be produced as SPG [Supplementary Planning Guidance, but don't hold your breath, ed.]

The planning officer's report for the 28 March meeting took a different tack. Instead of the lengthy explanations and arguments as to why the Welsh Language Board and Llandybie Community Council were wrong, the planning officers dismissed concerns about the language in a single paragraph:

With regard to the impact upon the Welsh Language, the site is allocated within the UDP as a housing site. As part of the UDP deliberations, approved by a Planning Inspector, these sites were subject to various tests and considerations, one of these being impact on the Welsh language. For the site to have been allocated, it would have been deemed that the impact upon the Welsh language would be acceptable to allow the consideration of the site as one allocated for housing development. As such, it is considered this initial reason for refusal would not stand up to scrutiny.

In other words, the plan forms part of the UDP (at least as far as the language is concerned), and any concerns would have been addressed while the UDP was being developed.

Strangely, though, the Head of Planning stated in his report to the meeting on 18 December that,

The site’s previous planing application and its current allocation in the UDP did not take this factor [the Welsh language, ed.] into account but the increase to the site’s allocation proposed by the LDP has.

At the most recent planning meeting the Head of Planning said that there was no provision for language impact assessments under the UDP, neglecting to remind councillors that this was because the council had never got around to formulating a policy. 

Currently the Welsh Government's main tool for the evaluation of impact on the Welsh language in planning policy is TAN20, a policy which is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. The previous Welsh Government recognised this, and consulted on an improved TAN20. Following the consultation, a draft TAN20 was issued in mid-2011, but it remains stuck in limbo as a draft and is not even available for public inspection on the Welsh Government's website.

Although very few people have copies of the 2011 document which is not actually in force, the Head of Planning told councillors that it prohibited the use of language impact assessments in individual planning applications.

Quite how he squares that with the wording of the "emerging" Local Development Plan would be an interesting question.

By now it is likely that any readers who have got this far will be thoroughly confused, and you have every right to be.

The Penybanc planning application is, in short, a part of the LDP or the UDP depending on what most suits the planning officers and the developers. Local democracy has once again been trashed and the planning process reduced to a farce, with local people finding the cards stacked against them.

We will have to wait for the minutes in the hope of seeing how individual councillors voted, but it seems that the council's "Independent" councillors did as they were told by the unelected officers, as they always do. Several Labour councillors who previously made a great deal of noise about standing up for their community appear to have caved in, while other members of Kev's army always supported Swallow Homes, which is comfortably ensconced in an offshore tax haven.

Opponents of the scheme in Penybanc and the surrounding area might like to consider taking legal advice because the tangled mess and logical somersaults performed by the planning officers would seem to invite Judicial Review.

A bit on the side

In the recent James v Thompson libel trial, Mr James was keen to let the judge know that he wasn't just any old council chief executive, but also a trusted adviser to the Welsh Government. The court heard that he had recently had his appointment as a non-executive director extended for a further three year period.

A non-executive director of what wasn't exactly clear, so Cneifiwr decided to make some enquiries in the form of a Freedom of Information request.

It turns out that in addition to his extremely well-paid duties as council chief executive and highly lucrative activities as returning officer (more than £20,000 for running last year's council elections), Mr James is also a non-executive director on one of the Welsh Government's Director General Corporate Governance Committees. 

There are six of these committees, and Mr James is a member of the Central Services Committee, which has as its remit "Strategic Planning, Finance and performance, (SPFP), People, Places and Corporate Services (PPCS) and Legal Directorate".

Mr James's advice to the Legal Directorate probably does not include how to circumvent Welsh Government legal guidelines and an Order prohibiting the use of public funds to bring actions for libel.

He was appointed to the role in April 2010, and his appointment was extended for a further three years in June 2012.

The Central Services Committee has two non-executive directors, the other being Mr Clive Grace. Mr Grace replaced Mr Clive Wolfenden. Mr Grace is, among other things, honorary secretary of the SOLACE Foundation, the rather odd name given to the official body which represents local authority bigwigs. Clive Wolfenden was assistant chief constable of North Wales Police, where he called for rank and file police officers routinely to be given fire arms when on the beat. It must be more dangerous than we thought up in the Gogs.

Non-executive directors are required to attend four meetings per year, and they also receive one day of training every year on top of that. For this they are paid an honorarium of £347 per day, plus travel expenses.

Judging by the expenses claimed, the meetings must be held a very long way from Cardiff, because Mr James clocked up just over £5,600 in expenses for the two years to 31 March 2012. To be fair to Mr James, Mr Wolfenden claimed just as much.

Expenses for the most recent year were running at a more modest £757 for Mr James and £748 for Mr Grace, although the full year figures were not available at the time of the FOI request.

A recent edition of the BBC's Week In Week Out looked at the extraordinarily generous pay packages enjoyed by some of the top brass in the Welsh public sector, and it drew up a shortlist of 10 top earners.

As Cneifiwr complained at the time, the list gave a rather skewed picture because it was made up of the top earners from ten different fields in the public sector, rather than the ten individuals with the fattest pay cheques. This meant, for example, that the Chief Executive of Carmarthenshire County Council did not make it onto the list because, despite Meryl Gravell's best efforts, he earns only slightly less than his counterpart in Cardiff, although in reality he is almost certainly in the public sector top five.

One of the other difficulties the BBC researchers faced was that establishing exactly how much public sector  fat cats really earn is not at all easy, as we can see in the case of Mr James, whose salary and fees are paid out of at least four different pots. For all we know, there may be more.

Où sont les Gitanes d'antan?

A ban on letting children on school exchange trips stay with host families abroad because of fears about their safety has been backed by councillors in Ceredigion. (BBC)

Back in the early 1970s Cneifiwr went on a school exchange trip to France. The UK had only just joined what we then called the EEC, and exchange controls were still in place. That meant that you had to take your passport along to the bank when you were buying your Francs, and a bank clerk duly recorded in the back of the passport that I had exchanged £20 and possibly undermined the British economy.

The fact that the Bank of England was interested in Cneifiwr's birthday money and meagre savings made the whole enterprise of travelling abroad seem all the more exciting and fraught with danger.

The exchange trip to France was with a school in a northern mining town. The host family's  toilet was an old-fashioned shed at the bottom of the garden, and like most French families in those days, they did not have a telephone.

Remarkably Cneifiwr was twinned with Laurence, a girl of about the same age, because there were not enough French boys interested in taking part.

The family were very warm and welcoming and took me to a nearby seaside resort in Belgium as a treat. There we were entertained by some elaborate fountains which danced and changed colour to organ music.

It was the first time I had been forced to use my limited French for real, as my exchange pal's parents did not speak English, nor did any of her many younger brothers and sisters. We carried on writing for a few more years, and Laurence went on to study medicine.

A couple of years later, aged 16, Cneifiwr and Tina, a girl from the same French class, won a bursary to go to France, ostensibly to study the chateaux of the Loire. Tina was a bit of a ladette, and we became great friends, united in our efforts to subvert what we considered to be the fascist authoritarian state as embodied by our secondary school.

Tina's parents were called in by the Headmaster who was a little nervous about allowing two teenagers of the opposite sex to travel unchaperoned to France.

They clearly raised no objections because we set off for France with our rucksacks early in the summer of 1975. Both of us had been lectured about the perils of hitch hiking, but the parents' concerns were undermined by the fact that they had let us go with only about £50 between us to survive for two weeks of youth hostelling along the Loire Valley.

We quickly did our sums and realised that we would have to dispense with luxuries such as food and railway tickets if we were to be able to afford the basics of life: Gauloises and wine. France back then still smelled of Gauloises and Gitanes, and smoking French fags was essential back home whenever we sat around the record player listening to Leonard Cohen.

Our survival rations were a big bag of "Alpen" muesli and a tub of milk powder which we mixed up with water to form a kind of gruel. We supplemented that with baguettes and vegetables which we stole from the fields. All washed down with luke warm white wine.

At one point a young woman took pity, and insisted on giving us 100 francs (about £10, I think) to go and buy ourselves a decent meal. We spent it on wine instead.

Hitch hiking was by and large fine, although we did get stuck one very hot day on a road which had very little traffic. In desperation Cneifiwr stood in the middle of the road and flagged down a passing Algerian who took pity on us when I said that Tina had terrible stomach pains and had to get to hospital. She sat in the back of the car and groaned unconvincingly for the half hour ride.

Our last night was spent at what must have been one of the most primitive youth hostels in France. The toilets stank indescribably and were buzzing with flies; it was obvious that desperate hostellers had taken to using the showers as a public toilet.

During the night a cat kept jumping onto Cneifiwr's bunk, and after a couple of hours of chucking the cat off, I gave up and slept. In the morning it turned out that she had settled down on my blanket and given birth to kittens.

Cneifiwr knocked on the door of the concierge's flat and explained to the woman that "votre chat a eu des petites chats sur mon lit". Unfortunately the past participle of naître escaped me, but Madame still understood. She muttered something and appeared minutes later in the dorm with a bucket of water to drown the kittens.

Sad to think that CRB checks and the grandly titled Head of Educational Wellbeing in Ceredigion have put a stop to all that.

One final thought. Imagine how good it would be if teenagers in Wales learning Welsh as a second language could spend 10 days with a Welsh-speaking family, swapping the dull and artificial Welsh of the classroom for a dose of the real thing. But thanks to our risk averse, cotton wool culture of wellbeing, that won't happen either.

Noson Adloniant Y Cadeirydd

Daw blwyddyn y Cyng. Siân Thomas fel Cadeirydd Cyngor Sir Caerfyrddin i ben ym mis Mai.

Swydd ddigon heriol yw Cadeirydd y Cyngor, ac fel chwa o awyr iach yn y siambr roedd Siân gyda'i gwên a thinc o hiwmor yn ei llais. Trwy godi proffil y Gymraeg, mae hi wedi gosod esiampl i'r Cyngor cyfan.

Gobeithio felly y bydd cymaint o bobl ag y bo modd yn mynd i'w Noson o Adloniant i godi arian ar gyfer ei helusennau dewisedig.

Elusennau Siân yw offer arbenigol i Ysbyty Glanaman; y cartref pwrpasol i ddioddefwyr dementia yn Nyffryn Aman; a Chymdeithas Clefyd Siwgr Cwm Gwendraeth.

Cynhelir y Noson o Adloniant yn y Thomas Arms, Llanelli, ddydd Iau Ebrill 18 am 7pm.

Mae’r tocynnau, sy’n costio £12, ar gael oddi wrth Eira Evans, Cyngor Sir Caerfyrddin, drwy ffonio 01267 224060 neu drwy anfon neges e-bost at: HEEvans@sirgar.gov.uk. 

 

PEIDIWCH Â GALW FI'N GADEIRYDD

GALWCH FI'N GADAIR!

Uchelgais ambell un yw ennill cadair

eisteddfod, swyddogol neu genedlaethol,

awch arall cael eisteddian mewn cadair

un siglo, nid sigledig, ar derfyn dydd

a hynny ger tanllwyth o ymddiddan,

ambell gadair sy'n urddasol foethus

fel Cadair Cadeirydd y Cyngor,

yn solet, suddog, os nad esmwyth

bob tro, a beth am gadair Barnwr

un rymus ar y naw

uwch lol daearolion?

Yn iau, ar ôl symud i'r wlad

clywais am olchi 'cadeiriau'!

methu deall y byd amaethu a'r dull

o esmwytháu da, ar eu penliniau.

Ond ddoe, penderfynodd geneth

a fu fel myfi yn darbwyllo'r byd

bod rhagor i ferch na bod yn brennaidd,

ei bod AM fod yn gadair,

a beth ellwch chi ei wneud

gyda sylw mor wirion, ond

eistedd arni.

(Menna Elfyn)

Council Leader breached Code of Conduct

The Public Services Ombudsman has ruled that Cllr Kevin Madge breached the Councillors' Code of Conduct when he used council resources to issue the now infamous Sainsbury's press release accusing MP Jonathan Edwards and Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM of "deliberately trying to sabotage" the development of a doctor’s surgery, health centre and care home in Cross Hands and school improvements to Ysgol Maes yr Yrfa.

Having undertaken a formal investigation into the complaint against the Labour Council Leader, the Ombudsman stated the press release contained both inaccurate and misleading statements; that authority resources should not have been used; and that the council leader has “walked a very fine line”.

In the view of the Ombudsman, Councillor Madge used, or authorised others to use, the resources of the authority improperly for political purposes, although he is not recommending that any further action be taken.

Bearing in mind how libel has been at the top of the council's news agenda recently, it is ironic to say the least that Cllr Madge's press release was about as close to the textbook definition of defamation as you can get. He can count himself lucky that neither of the two Plaid politicians is likely to take the matter to court, although if they did the council leader would at least have the comfort of knowing that his court costs would be picked up by the council tax payer.

A spokesman for Mr Thomas and Mr Edwards said they welcomed the findings of the Ombudsman’s investigation into Councillor Madge’s comments and his improper use of public resources to carry out a politicised attack on them, and called for Councillor Madge to issue a full public apology.

The spokesman for Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM and Jonathan Edwards MP said:

“Nobody goes into politics expecting not to receive a couple of low blows from your opponents, especially when your main rival is the Labour party. However, at the heart of any democratic system there has to be political integrity – especially from a leader of a public authority. 

“Mr Thomas and Mr Edwards therefore welcome the findings of the Ombudsman and believe his comments vindicate entirely their complaint against the Leader of Carmarthenshire County Council.

“Given the conclusions of the Ombudsman, Councillor Madge would do well to consider whether he is surrounding himself with the right advisors. 

“In the meantime, however, he should issue a full public apology for the misuse of public resources and for his inaccurate and misleading statements.”

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Ever obliging, Cneifiwr is happy to respond to a request for a picture from Anon. Somehow, I don't think he got this tan in Garnant, do you readers?

Planning matters: enforcement Carmarthenshire style

Mrs Trisha Breckman and her partner may have thought that Carmarthenshire County Council's belated and very grudging acceptance of the report by the Public Services Ombudsman on their treatment at the hands of the council in the planning dispute with their neighbouring farmer/road haulier and sometime scrap dealer had brought the whole sorry saga to an end.


Readers will recall that it took the council 7 months to get round to discussing the ombudsman's report, albeit behind closed doors at a meeting of the planning committee. The full council never got an opportunity to discuss the way in which the matter had been handled because the relevant report was tacked on at the end of the annual budget meeting, and it was voted through along with a truckload of other reports without discussion.

Having observed the way in which the council downplayed the matter, dragged its feet and made it obvious that it was not at all happy with the Ombudsman's findings, Mrs Breckman's neighbour appears to have concluded that he had no need to worry about any comeback from that quarter.

A large wooden "privacy" board which had been put up by Mr Thomas was removed just within the 3 month deadline imposed by the Ombudsman. This meant that the council did not have to pay Mrs Breckman and her partner £1,000 in compensation for failing to enforce planning regulations. Subsequently the old removals van which had been parked where the trailer now stands was taken away in early November. All seemed well.

Then on 1st March this year a huge trailer belonging to an articulated lorry was brought in to replace the board and removals van. This is now the view from Mrs Breckman's window:



A second view taken from a public road may help to put things into perspective. Of all the places that the trailer could have been parked, apparently there was only room for it outside Mrs Breckman's cottage:

Unsurprisingly, Mrs Breckman has been back in touch with the council, who have replied that they can do nothing about it because the trailer is not a fixed structure and is being used for agricultural purposes (it contains a couple of bales of hay).

Previously the field and the removals van was home to two pigs. Judging from the height of the articulated trailer, any pigs now in the field will have to be able to fly.