Pig in a Poke

Pig in a Poke

I hear that the emails have started to light up between Morrison’s, Sharp Communications (sic) and Bolsover DC. Back in the spring when they concocted the scheme behind very thick, and much closed, doors it all seemed so easy.  Sharp Communications were “tasked” with getting the Civic Society on-board and sweet talked them in an exclusive preview to which everyone else (especially myself!) was barred.  They probably got the idea from the Council themselves who even one year later have not released any details of the process that led to the selection of Morrison’s in the first place or of the other offers made.

 However it hasn’t quite gone according to plan. In spite of the soft sell the Civic Society have objected to both scheme calling them unacceptable. Someone else who hasn’t learnt her lines is Joan Dixon the Labour County Councillor who by co-incidence works for an organisation that the Bolsover Councillor Leader Eion Watts Chairs. She has panned the designs as “brutalism” and “needless modern” and raised concern over the traffic impacts, it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall of her office. Meanwhile the Town Council have opposed the Middle Street office scheme intended to relocate the contact office and  Police; English Heritage have objected to the loss of the Green and Lodge; County highways have taken issue with the traffic report and requested further meetings and their archaeologist says that the applications have not been accompanied by the necessary archaeological reports!! All this wasn’t in the script.

But someone loves the Council, there is one solitary letter of support on the Council’s planning web-site. But it looks rather pathetic alongside the 80 plus letters of objection. It makes you wonder what Sharp Communications have been doing, but the real reason is that you can only sell a pig in a poke if the buyer is too scared to look in the bag.

It would be nice to report that Bolsover Labour Cabinet have come to their senses but they continue to throw good money after bad and have just deepened their financial hole by letting a contract to re-furbish the Council’s new white elephant, Clowne Campus. They haven’t even stopped to consider that in the post-Olympics euphoria the idea that the Council could asset-strip this site as well by selling for development the surrounding playing fields is becoming increasingly less tenable by the minute.

The good work in saving costs by sharing services with its neighbour in North Derbyshire has been undone at a single stroke by spending nearly £6M to buy and refurbishing Clowned Campus creating the farce of a Council with two HQs in Bolsover and man of its senior staff working based for long periods of time at a third office in Chesterfield or indeed the fourth depot and office at Doe Lea.

Almost makes you feel sorry for them, but this tragedy is all of their own making.

Facing the music

Firstly I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to come to Bolsover Council meeting last week to ask why Sherwood Green and Lodge has been chosen as the site for a new superstore. I had hoped that the members of the Planning Committee would also want to hear from local traders and residents but instead they chose to walk out of the meeting claiming that even hearing the questions would expose the Council to a legal challenge for predetermination.

The strange thing is that these same Councillors had just received training and should have understood the difference between an open and a closed mind. As Section 25 of the new Localism Act says “A decision-maker is not to be taken to have had, or to have appeared to have had, a closed mind when making the decision just because the decision-maker had previously done anything that directly or indirectly indicated what view the decision-maker took, or would or might take, in relation to a matter”.

There is no excuse for their actions. The law has made it very clear, they could, and should, have stayed and thus kept their mind open to what local people said. Their behaviour was not only discourteous but showed a lack of commitment to being “in touch” with the public.