The Battle with the Council continues
Why do we continue to object to the Council’s decision?
Dear Friends,
We hope you had a wonderful break over the festive season and wish everyone a Happy New Year. This is an update on where we are with the Council.
Many of you may have thought that we had given up our protest against the Council’s decision because of Kew Society’s statement that “there were tentative moves towards agreement on Pensford Field following a ‘constructive’ meeting” in an email sent to their members dated 5 December. A meeting did take place on 29 November with the Council, Dose of Nature and ourselves with Kew Society present. However, we were very clear that our complaints had not yet been addressed and we do not accept the decision. Kew Society’s website has retained the headline but has now clarified that we still do not agree with the decision. Unfortunately, this email has led to considerable confusion.
We are contributing to discussions about the new lease to Dose of Nature so as to protect wildlife and current users of the field. Here are the proposals (follow link) that we sent to the Council ahead of the November meeting.
However, we still consider the decision is wrong for the following reasons:
It will result in planning applications by Dose of Nature for human shelters in the field and offices on the site of the studio which is not consistent with it being a site for wildlife and we believe it bodes badly for the future of the site.
We don’t understand how granting these applications could be consistent with the Council’s Draft Local Plan which is close to being adopted - Pensford Field has been listed as Local Green Space special to the local community with equivalent protection to Green Belt (see page 290). Perhaps neither the Council nor Dose of Nature have factored in the significance of this? Or perhaps the Council intends only to pay lip service to the Local Plan? However currently it reads as if planning applications would have to be refused.
Dose of Nature’s objectives as a charity do not allow for activities relating to conservation, education on conservation or community activities. They have expressed willingness to change them but so far this does not appear to have happened.
No thought appears to have been given by the Council as to what might happen if circumstances change and Dose of Nature no longer wish to manage the site, the charity outgrows the site, or the Council commissions the services from a different charity. An arrangement that has lasted for over three decades is being replaced by one that is quite possibly transitory. A site (which we are told is worth around £4 million) could be ripe for development should the new arrangement fail for whatever reason.
The Council has disregarded all its policies and procedures to make this happen without community consultation. There was plenty of time to consult because the decision (at least in principle) was made in early March 2024 at a meeting between Sir Mark Rowley and the Leader, Cllr Gareth Roberts, without officials present. We discovered this from the Council’s response to our first Freedom of Information Request (follow links to see first and second parts) - this surprised us as we had been given “urgency” and the “risk of Dose of Nature leaving the Borough” as reasons for not consulting on several occasions. But there were in fact 6 months in which to conduct a consultation before we were told of the decision on 5 September 2024.
We have recently found out that the decision was made outside the Council’s Constitution - it should have been treated as a Key Decision (see paragraph 9 of the Scheme of Delegation) which must be referred to a Committee of the Council where we would have had an opportunity to object and to correct the misrepresentations made to the Council.
On 18 December, we made a complaint that the decisions were unlawful because they did not comply with the Constitution through the Council’s complaint procedure (follow link) and also referred it to the Mayor who is responsible for upholding the Constitution (he is now taking legal advice). We raised the issue at the Council meeting on 3 December 2024 (follow link to public questions) when we were told by the Leader, Cllr Gareth Roberts, that it did not affect communities in two or more wards. We disagree as many of our five hundred current supporters are drawn from different wards and Dose of Nature provides services across all wards in the Borough.
Key Decisions are also those that are controversial or politically sensitive, but the Leader said at the same Council meeting on 3 December 2024 that, at the time the decision was taken, it was not regarded as controversial! This is an Orwellian response - decisions made behind closed doors tend not to attract controversy until people actually find out about them.
On 6 December 2024, our initial complaint dated 16 October (follow link) was rejected by the Council on the basis that it related to the Council’s decisions and disagreement with lawful decisions can only be overturned by the courts (follow link). It took nearly two months for the Council to send us a nine-line standard reply which arrived a day after the likely three-month deadline for going to court for a judicial review (we found out about the Council’s decision on 5 September 2024).
We are considering a referral to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. There are some aspects of our complaint which are about legality - we have seen no evidence that the Council has complied with its obligations under the Local Government Act 1972 which requires Councils to demonstrate that they have obtained the best consideration that can reasonably be obtained - generally a competitive process is needed to demonstrate this.
We have just had a response from the Council to our Freedom of Information request dated 3 November 2024 (follow link). It has taken the Council 2 months to tell us that we should reconsider our request as it would be too time consuming for the Council to respond to it. We don’t agree this is correct and whilst we could ask for an internal review before going to the Information Commissioner, this would all take months. Instead we have submitted a revised Freedom of Information request with reduced scope (see link) in the hope that we get a partial response within a reasonable time period.
Why don’t we just give up and go away? Well, we feel very aggrieved that the Council:
Pays so little regard to its constitution, policies and procedures;
Took at face value what Dose of Nature said to them about us restricting their access and seemingly believed in its alleged threats to leave the Borough.
Deals with our complaints and freedom of information requests both slowly and ineptly, thus potentially frustrating our options to escalate matters through the appropriate channels.
Relies on the daunting legal costs for organisations of mounting any challenge through the courts and risking having to meet the Council’s costs for disregarding its constitution, policies and procedures. We were quoted £50-£100,000 just for our own costs. We would also run the risk of having to pay the equivalent costs of the Council.
If this can happen to us, it can happen to any individual or organisation in the Borough and we need to press this Council to act democratically and in accordance with natural justice. Thank you for your letters of support. We may not win this battle as the odds are very much stacked against us, but every contact you make with councillors and our local MP, Sarah Olney, is important.
We will be managing the field until September 2025 and will continue to press the Council for transparency and to act in accordance with its legal obligations and constitution. Apologies for the length of this email but we just want you to be aware of where things stand and that the battle with the Council is not yet over.
Yours sincerely,
Sarah
Sarah Atkins
Chair Pensford Field Environmental Trust
