Today I filed a comment on the Vale’s planning page for West Way. My first draft was full of outraged adjectives and adverbs. I took a tea break and edited it so that this is the final version:

Doric’s claims in their recent SCI Addendum aren’t true.

Doric tell you that their website and Facebook page are used for public questions and answers, to engage in conversation with the community.

• They say their Facebook page, “engages with members of the community to respond to their comments, questions and concerns”. That’s just not true. They don’t allow questions to be posted there.

• They say their website “is now more user-friendly and provides the opportunity for users to … ask questions.” This isn’t true; I see nowhere for public questions and answers.

I went to both places yesterday specifically to ask about accessibility for the disabled, and there is no way to post a question in either place.

Since this SCI Addendum is part of their planning application, I assume there is some sort of requirement or expectation that Doric must meet?

• What is that requirement regarding community engagement?
• Is there something in our planning policy that addresses it?
• What steps do the planning department take to actively check that the claims made by the applicant are indeed true?

This doc makes Doric sound like they are genuinely involving the community in their plans. That’s just not so. They won’t make public their consultation results. Their public events were cancelled and not re-scheduled. Repeated requests from several bodies for scale modelling of their plans are ignored. Reports they refer to aren’t published or provided when asked for. There’s no forum for asking questions and getting sincere answers.

Doric’s claims in the SCI Addendum aren’t true. They shouldn’t be included as evidence that some requirement has been met.

17 Sep 14