Mr Colin Cole
Monday, November 22, 2004
Rory Macleod
Head of Planning Control. Croydon Council . . . . . .(See they don’t muck about . . ‘Head of’ no less)
Dear Mr Macleod . . . . . Re; IS CROYDON COUNCIL RUN BY A BUNCH OF CORRUPT CROOKS?
Thank you for your letter of 19th November received today. Which is even less explanatory than your last letter to me on 10th December 2003. Nearly it’s anniversary. More importantly, not a single issue has been resolved in the meantime. I can see why you say, in this recent letter “cases involving a breach of planning control often take a considerable time to resolve.” . . . well they certainly do in Croydon.
Excuse me if you find me ungrateful and cynical at your statement that “The matter you have raised will be investigated by my Planning Enforcement Officers.”
But would this be a similar investigation to the one that Phillip Goodwin lied about to Geraint Davies MP? The one he claimed was already taking place, that had supposedly started beginning of July. The one that of course never materialised. . (not for seven month anyway . . and only then because I reported it to the police as a crime. . . It got ignored of course but someone at the nick passed it on to them and they decided they better at least make an effort)
Or perhaps the one Nasreen Panchoo was commissioned to undertake by David Wechsler at the beginning of August? That also did not materialise despite her promises to do so. The one that Phillip Goodwin also mentioned to Geraint Davies MP.
Or the one that Croydon Council told the Ombudsman was being given “active consideration to . . . “ back in July?
Excuse me for starting to think that “will be investigated” is just a euphemism for ‘do sweet Fanny Adams’, another euphemism you might be familiar with.
This is no longer a case of “breach of planning control” anymore. UNLESS YOU CAN SHOW ME OTHERWISE.
This is about your Planning Officers conspiring with the applicant to commit a number of criminal offenses, in order to implement a planning application that they negligently passed.
One that should never have even been considered, given that it is not possible to comply with Croydon’s own guidelines on such applications, without doing so. And that is obviously not just my opinion. Geraint Davies MP writes on 18th August 2004 to Phillip Goodwin Director of Planning Croydon Council . . “the positioning of the aforementioned duct is in contravention of Croydon Council guidelines on this issue, which are supposed to ensure that such flues are not positioned close to windows.”
And Andrew Pelling GLA writes recently to your Enforcement Officer Roy Cullen . . . . “I understand that Geraint Davies MP has also become involved in this, but has failed to elicit a satisfactory response from the Council over the reasons for the construction of such a questionable structure.”
This is about your Planning Officers conspiring with your Environmental Health Officers to disregard our Statutory Rights of be free of Nuisance, both now and in the future. Because if they did not do so, then their’ conspiracy with the applicant would have been to no avail.
This is about your Planning Officers’ cynical and total disregard for the health of my tenants, in order to cover up their negligence, and force this application through.
This is about your Planning Officers’ cynical and total disregard for the lives and general safety of my tenants in regard to the Fire hazard implications as described by Gary White, Assistant Divisional Officer London Fire Brigade, for the same reason
This is about your Complaints Division conspiring with your Executives, to not implement the investigations that they promised to undertake, to the Ombudsman, Geraint Davies MP and of course myself. This is about, almost everyone who has been involved, conspiring to not reply to my many letters. To ignore all arguments and questions. And if not, to write in as dumb a manner as possible without giving anything away . . . . . . . . . . exactly in the manner of your letter here in front of me.
And I’m not even going to go into the cynical ignorant reply I received from Phillip Goodwin on the matter of the risk of rot to my floors, caused again by your Planning Officers’ inadequacies.
I am not interested in being “notified as soon as possible as to whether any action can be taken by Croydon Council.”
I am only interested in what action you intend to take given the appalling behaviour of Croydon Council in general and your Planning Officers in particular.
Unless you can reassure me that your offer to investigate has any more substance than the numerous assurances I have had so far, . . . . all total lies. And in a time that is considerably less than the average of two months (almost exactly) it usually takes for Croydon Council to reply.
Then Sir I’m afraid you know what you can do with your offer.
If your offer is genuine, but given the brevity of your letter, 98 words probably equals the number of letters I have written to Croydon Council about this, most of which have been ignored and the rest to no avail. And given how long it took you to send it, (two weeks) it doesn’t look likely does it?.
But . .if you are genuine I will be happy to see if you can resolve some of these issues.
I won’t be holding my breath though.
You don’t need an investigation Sir. Just take one look at the FLUE that is right outside my kitchen window. You call yourself a Planning Control Officer, just tell me one single thing that is right about it. I had a proper planning Officer look at it, earlier this year. One from a properly run Council that borders your own. It took him 5 seconds to tell me what was wrong with it. The same things any proper Planning Officer knows. The ones that Geraint Davies MP, and Andrew Pelling GLA knew straight away. THE ONES THAT YOU KNOW TOO.
It breaks every guideline that Croydon Council has for these structures. It breaks the Law on GAS Flue outlets. It denies us our rights to not be inflicted with the nuisance of cooking odours. It is a fire hazard, as described by the fire brigade. It is a danger to health emitting carcinogenic particles. . . . . AND IT IS ON MY PROPERTY.
What is needed is for you to exercise your powers, to get the thing taken down. THEN . . . you can spend as long as you like ‘investigating’ how on earth it got there. Take a year if you want to. What’s another year between friends? And I think you will find my description of CORRUPTION earlier is pretty much close to the truth.
Croydon Council have had nearly a year to investigate this matter. And they have not managed to get past your standard letter received earlier today. I have been told how Croydon Council ‘investigate’ matters such as these and told the Ombudsman ages ago that this is what you would do. . . . ie fail to complete a single investigation and keep passing the file to another department to start another investigation. The supposed investigation of your officers would be a Stage Two investigation as described in your charter.
Well we did that back in the Spring to no avail. Croydon Council undertook to ‘investigate’ a Stage 3 at the beginning of August. With the same result that I predicted to the Ombudsman. . . . . . “sweet Fanny Adams.”
So why don’t you try something new? . . . . . USE YOUR AUTHORITY AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. . . . . then investigate. You could find out what the going rate is for a corrupt Council Officer to ignore every guideline and law in his book to implement and allow a totally inappropriate planning application while your doing so.
Yours Sincerely Colin Clifford Cole