It was a long meeting of Rawreth Parish Counciol tonight – and it’s a bit late in the evening to write much now.
But it’s worth mentioning that Hawkwell Councillor John Mason’s views on the consultation process were discussed and backed by Rawreth PC tonight – in particular the view he expressed in a comment in onlinefocus a few days ago:
“I do not think it right for the Council to give the public ready access to full consultation responses which are submitted on line but not those submitted on paper. This policy simply discriminates against those who either cannot or chose not to use the online system and prevents those people who are interested in seeing all of the consultation responses as submitted, in the raw state as it were, before the Council prepares a written analysis or summary of all representations. Complete transparency can only be delivered if all responses are published in full whether these are submitted on line or by alternative means. Unless the Council can be seen to be completely transparent in the process leading to analysis and summary then in my opinion soundness is compromised when it need not be if the Council changed its policy (from that which the Council outlined to me when I complained) and resourced accordingly to fully support the ethics of an SCI without compromise.”
Well done Rawreth Parish Council for supporting John.
The DPD consultation is severly flawed with 460 responses from Hockley being misallocated and 800 or so from elsewhere suppressed. These problems will be raised when the DPD is considered by the Inspector and may well result in the consultation being found “unsound”. But in the meantime it undermines the council’s integrity and I would hope that all District Councillors would support John’s and my formal objections to the council.
Lets see democracy in action.
That would be a refreshing change, Brian