| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Wonky “illegal” car park to get planning permission | |
| Posted by: | Adam Beamish | |
| Date/Time: | 02/01/21 22:50:00 |
| Guy, can I ask a genuine question ?. Most of 'your' planning officers at Hounslow are presumably, like me, members of the Royal Town Planning Institute. To be a member isn't free, requires us to go through an assessment of professional competence before becoming a full member, and we are required to undertake continuous professional development throughout our career by way of attending courses and so forth, maintain and update a professional development plan and so forth. By being a member of the RTPI we are bound by a professional code of conduct which includes a requirement to conduct ourselves with honesty and integrity. Needless to say if a planner in the public sector accepted a backhander, or a planner acting for a developer offered a backhander to the local authority, that planner would be in breach of the RTPI code of conduct, would be stripped of their membership, and that would seriously impact on their career. So why, when members of the public use forums like these and social media to directly allege that one of your planners has taken a backhander, does the local authority do nothing to defend that planner ?. In my case, if a member of the public alleges that of me, and it has happened, I immediately instruct solicitors to act. Why ? - because I won't tolerate someone jeopardising the career I've built up over 20 years. Don't you think your Officers should be properly defended ?. Yet I never see it happen, I've seen emails from members of the public sent to Councils, with me copied in as the agent for the developer, alleging that my client is in cahoots with the Council and that the application is a "done deal", and whereas I've robustly responded I've found that the Council have simply ignored the email. It's something I genuinely don't understand. If Councils ignore such public allegations, it only gives the impression that there's some truth in that allegation. I would genuinely love, solely for the benefit of my profession, for either Ballymore or Hounslow to instigate legal proceedings against Raymond. And that's not out of any ill-feeling towards someone I've never met, and for all I know what he infers might be true, but surely it is the duty of the Council to its employees to properly defend them, i.e. by appointing solicitors to contact Raymond directly regarding the allegations he has made on a public forum ?. |