City Council

Planning officials lie to committee

By The Basa ⋅ May 1, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

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We covered some months ago the illegal erection of a phone mast in Brunstane RoadSouth.  Eventually together with local residents we managed to get the mast moved four meters further away from Brunstane Primary School and Nursery. 

It now seems that the local residents just don’t give up and the controversy over the mast just will not stop.  Thanks to leaks within the council we are now able to exclusively reveal that the officials in the planning department intentionally misled the elected members on the planning committee.  In an email from planning official Allan Moonie to planning official Ian Turnbull which is in the possession of EdinburghSucks, Mr. Moonie tells Mr. Turnbull:

“As discussed, there isn’t (as far as I’m aware) any legal impediment to serving an enforcement notice on oneself, but it is seen as bad practice.   I think we should present the Committee with the facts, but not put anything in the report that would lead them towards thinking that they have another avenue of enforcement powers to explore.” 

Where this all comes into action is that the planning application went to planning committee and in that application was a lie (we also have a copy of the now illegal application).  It stated that the council owned the land - in fact the council did not own the land.  Through the freedom of information act (FOIA) in a letter from the Corporate Property and Emergency Planning department of the council (which we have a copy) the following was disclosed: 

The property records kept by this department have been examined and advise that the City of Edinburgh Council does not own this ground you described. 

The records maintained by this department relate to properties owned or used by the council and we do not have any information on the ownership of this particular area.  However, from local knowledge, it is believed that the ground is owned jointly by the proprietors of the houses situated on the opposite side of  Brunstane Road South,”

So these residents who fought for months and spent many thousands of pounds on legal fees to fight a planning application where the council were putting a mast on council property turns out to be a complete lie by planning officials and they never passed the information on to the planning committee so that ownership of the property could be revealed.

Now there are many aggrieved residents who find out that it is probably their own land that the mast is on.  Indeed correspondents to EdSucks are asking how thick were the brown envelopes in this case if indeed there were any!

This situation is so serious that we are contacting every member of the planning committee by telephone for their comments and those will appear on this site when they are available. 

Random Posts you may have missed

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• July 6, 2005 -- Where is Eric ‘Teeth’ Milligan
• April 22, 2005 -- Is Maureen Child lying again?

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