Why Council Officers Won’t Do Their Job
The latest decision to not enforce the clear change of use at Hamptons is a political decision. The faceless. unelected and unaccountable minions in the Planning Department, have once again failed to do their job.
The Liberal Agenda
Sadly local authorities are a breeding ground for woke policies and liberals pushing their own personal views on how we all should live. In Chelmsford it’s a double edged sword, with the liberals employed by the city council, working hand in hand with the pro-diversity Lib Dem political party.
The Chelmsford Muslim Society are a pet project for the Lib Dems, who have shown nothing but support for anything that CMS do, and contempt for local residents who dare to speak out.
And this from a party that lists it’s principles and beliefs as:
Liberty, equality, democracy, community, human rights, internationalism, environmentalism.
The Latest breach investigation
The latest “investigation” has taken nearly 8 months, and coincidentally the decision was held over until after the elections and Ramadan. Did officers do this on purpose, to avoid any bad publicity and lost votes for the Lib Dems ? Of course they did !
We know that local residents sent in swathes of evidence and photographs. But did that really take 8 months to consider. The council blame the delays on CMS and seeking legal counsel. What method of communication were the council using ? Carrier pigeon ?
We think the answer is more likely that there was a lengthy dialogue between the council officers and the external counsel they consulted, as they sought to find any legal grounds to avoid doing their job, and enforce the latest breach of planning control.
Lets Look At Previous Decisions Relating To Hamptons
And this graphic is clear. The first decision in 2020, advised CMS that they would need planning permission to increase the use for, or in connection with public worship and religious education.
After that, all we’ve seen is a series of accommodations to CMS, that allowed wave after wave of escalation in religious use. Creating what one Lib Dem councillor correctly described as a “Stealth Mosque”
So what changed ? How do you go from “you need planning permission “ to “does not need planning permission” when the religious use has incrementally increased and not decreased. The answer is the influence of senior council officers with a liberal agenda !
What we did see after this initial ruling in September 2020, was an attempt by the CEO and Legal Services at the council, to gag your councillors, and control the narrative, even to the point of issuing briefing statements of what they were to say if questioned about Hamptons. Here’s a document we obtained under the Freedom Of Information Act.
And what was to follow was worse, with enforcement officers repeatedly tipping off CMS about surprise enforcement visits, and botching observations (and it’s all logged). It’s almost as if they were instructed to investigate, but make sure you don’t find anything.
Just a month after the briefing statement, the CEO Nick Eveleigh himself wrote to us asking us not to contact councillors about Hamptons.
the bottom line
When you challenge bad decisions or clear bias by council officers, the council “investigate”, make you wait months for an answer, then decide to take take no further action.
When CMS are unhappy about a council decision, that nice Mr Syed picks up the phone to David Greene (director of Sustainable Communities) or Robin Hosegood (Senior Team Leader for Strategic Development), and plays the victim card. And as if by magic he gets his way !