Monday witnessed a rare event in County Hall when the economic
development scrutiny committee called in the decision of Cabinet
to issue a compulsory purchase order (CPO) in respect of some
land at Withybush.
This is only the second Cabinet decision to be scrutinised in
the three years since the new arrangements came into effect which
indicates either that the Cabinet is virtually infallible or the
scrutiny committees are, as one academic researcher into the subject
has put it, "toothless tigers".
As an old-fashioned liberal, I have some difficulty with the idea
of the state confiscating people's land even when adequate compensation
is paid.
However, I must concede that there are occasions when the clear
public interest requires the compulsory acquisition of land.
Whether providing a home for Pembrokeshire's motor traders is
one of those occasions, I will leave you to decide.
This is an interesting case because of a conflict of evidence
between the landowner's family, who say they have not engaged
an agent, and an agent who purports to act for them.
This goes back to July last year when the WDA were negotiating
with the "agent" for the purchase of the land.
Those negotiations ran into the sand and were then taken over
by the county council.
At Monday's meeting, Roger Barrett-Evans read from copies of correspondence
between the agent and the WDA.
Quite reasonably, when he took over, Mr Barrett-Evans assumed
that the agent with whom the WDA had been dealing was in fact
the agent for the landowner.
However, at Monday's meeting a letter from the landowner's son
was read out which said, quite unequivocally, that there was no
agent and never had been.
Now, these two contradictory propositions can't both be right.
That brings us to the resolution passed by the Cabinet.
It reads: "That in the event of discussions for the purchase
of land agreement not being concluded by May 31 2005, that the
Director of Development be authorised..." to seek a Compulsory
Purchase Order.
Clearly, this resolution is predicated on the assumption that
there have been negotiations with the owner (through her agent);
that these negotiations have failed to produce agreement; and,
as a last resort, the Council needs a CPO.
However, according to the landowner's account, these assumptions
are false.
Old Grumpy would have thought that the best way to proceed was
to have sent the matter back to the June meeting of Cabinet by
which time it would be possible to resolve the conflicting evidence
from the family and the agent.
If it transpires that the Council/WDA have been negotiating, unsuccessfully,
with the owner's accredited agent since July 2004 then the Cabinet
decision could be allowed to stand, intact.
If it turns out that the family's version of events is correct,
then it would seem that democratic decency would require the council
to open negotiations and set a new deadline for triggering the
CPO process.
Unfortunately, where the county council is concerned, democratic
decency always runs a poor second to brute power and the committee
voted 6-5 to let the Cabinet decision stand.
Interestingly, the five who voted against this decision included
the Chairman Tom Richards (Independent).
Numbered among those who voted the Independent Party ticket was
the vice-Chairman, Ken Edwards (Labour).
Another peculiar thing about the Cabinet's deliberations on
the CPO is that the report before it contained no information
as to the likely cost to the Council Tax payers.
However, it was revealed at Monday's meeting that this was to
be what is known as a "back to back" transaction, a
sort of pass the parcel whereby the council buys the land and
immediately conveys it to a developer.
The developer then constructs the roads, sewers, etc and sells
off individual plots to the end-users.
That way the cost to the council is either nil or negligible.
Strangely, none of this appeared in the original report to the
Cabinet.
Even stranger, nobody thought to ask.
Still, I suppose it's a bit much to expect a rubber stamp to have
an enquiring mind.
Old Grumpy hears that, following Sue Hayman's defeat at the
recent election, brotherly and sisterly love is in rather short
supply among the comrades of the Preseli Labour party.
The protagonists appear to be divided into three camps.
Firstly those who believe that had they had a local candidate
- Joyce Watson, for instance - they would have had a much better
chance.
This faction have their knives out for Tamsin Dunwoody-Kneafsey
AM who is widely regarded as the architect of Sue Hayman's successful
campaign to get herself selected as the candidate.
Then, there is another group that lays the blame at the feet of
all-women short-lists. They say that with a wider field to choose
from they could have dealt themselves a winning hand.
And finally, there are those who say that the election could have
been won had everyone pulled their weight, particularly some of
the male members who spent the duration sulking in their tents
because of the wimmin only policy.
I also hear that, if, next time around, the list of candidates
is widened to include men, County Councillor Tom Tudor is likely
to be a strong contender.
Several people have drawn my attention to the large Steven
Crabb poster that spent the campaign poking its head over the
garden wall of No. 1 Merlins Avenue, Merlins Bridge.
This is, of course the residence of ex-Cllr Maurice Hughes; the
former leader of the so-called Independent Political (sic) Group
on Pembrokeshire county council.
"Showing his true colours" as one of my informants put
it (see Back-door Tories).
Speaking of true colours, when I was in County Hall the other
day, I couldn't help but notice the preponderance of blue shirts
among the Independents in the members tea room.
This started me off hypothesising that this might be a way of
spotting Tory wolves masquerading as Independent sheep.
Testing out my theory, I first noticed that the known Tories:
Mark Edwards and David Bryan, were both sporting blue shirts.
As was the highly-suspected Cllr Jamie Adams from Camrose.
But the theory didn't reign long before it came up against what
Huxley called the tragedy of science; "The slaying of a beautiful
hypothesis by a ugly fact" in the shape of Cllr Michael Evans
of Tenby who was attired in a natty blue check job.
And, as I know from reading Cllr Evans' election manifesto, he
has "...no political alliance."
At first I thought I might be able to save my hypothesis from
the knacker's yard by stipulating that only self-coloured shirts
should count.
But, when I noticed that Cllr Ken Edwards (Labour, Neyland) was
wearing a blue shirt, I thought the game was up.
However, on reflection, I'm not so sure.
After all, Ken votes with the Independents (Tories) almost as
often as he supports his own side.
Yesterday in Parliament, Tony Blair chided poor old Michael
Howard on the Tories' poor showing in the General Election where
they won just 196 seats.
As Mr Blair pointed out, even when Labour was at its lowest point;
in the 1983 election under the leadership of Michael Foot, it
managed to win 208 seats.
Drawing comparisons between these two elections is an interesting
exercise because, as I said a few weeks ago, it highlights the
fact that the election was to a large part decided in the committee
rooms of the Boundary Commission.
In 1983 the Tories won 46% of the vote in England to Labour's
27%.
That gave them 362 seats (66%) to Labour's 148 (27%).
That represented a serious imbalance between seats an votes but
nothing like as serious as in 2005, when the division between
Labour and Conservative was almost even with the Tories having
a small advantage of about 60,000 votes.
But, when it came to seats won, Labour had a lead of 93.
Clearly, this sort of disparity does nothing to increase public
confidence in the first-past-the-post system.
Much has been made of the fact that New Labour has a comfortable
overall majority of 66 on the strength of the votes of just over
20% of the electorate.
Why this should be an issue now, when at the 2001 election they
had a 167 majority on the back of just 25%, I am not sure.
These figures, I think, explode the myth of the mandate.
This myth is based on the idea that the party with an overall
majority has received a public endorsement for its manifesto which
it has an absolute right to implement and anyone who opposes it
is somehow disregarding the wishes of the people.
When only one in four, or one in five, of the electorate have
positively supported the manifesto, that is a difficult claim
to sustain.
Even more difficult when you consider that those voting for a
particular party are hardly likely to approve of its programme
down to every last dot and comma.
So, this claim, that it is somehow undemocratic to oppose measures
foreshadowed in the manifesto, is patently false.
Naturally, the winning party wants to implement its programme
but it has no divine right to do so.
That is because the UK's constitution safeguards against an elective
dictatorship after the election.
The revising and delaying powers of the second chamber being the
mainstay of this process.
Of course, we could put the safeguards in place prior to the election
by introducing some form of proportional representation.
However, on present electoral arithmetic, that would mean that
the Lib Dems would always have the final say over which of the
two bigger parties formed the Government.
An example of the tail wagging the dog which can hardly be considered
an improvement on the present, admittedly imperfect, system.
Last week, I appeared in front of the Corporate Governance
Committee to put the case for my notice of motion calling for
responses to Welsh Assembly consultation documents to formulated
by full council rather than the Cabinet.
The report of the Head of Legal Services reads: "In view
of the need to ensure that consultation documents are considered
and responses provided within the required time scales and as
the way the Council currently deals with these matters is not
out of step with the way in which other local authorities deal
with them, there is no justification for changing the way the
Council currently deals with consultation documents."
As I pointed out to the committee, the consultation document that
prompted my notice of motion, was sent out by the Welsh Assembly
on 15 November 2004.
When it failed to appear on the agenda for both the December and
January meetings of Cabinet, I emailed the Leader asking him what
was going on.
It was eventually placed on the agenda for Cabinet meeting of
7 February, but only after the Council had written to the Assembly
seeking permission to extend the 3 February deadline for replies.
So much for responses being "provided within the required
time scales."
I suspect that had I not raised the matter with the Leader the
consultation reply would have been sent by the Chief Officers
Management Board withou any reference to the members at all.
I always knew that this attempt to widen democracy wouldn't find
favour with the 12-member committee, especially as nine of them
are on the Leader's payroll.
As I've said before, when you've got the votes in your pocket
you don't have to worry too much about the logic of your case.
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