The Friends of Lever Park

If anyone thought that it was all over, you are in for a shock.

And if you thought that Go-Ape was the end of it, you are in for a shock.

I encourage all supporters of Lever Park to attend any future meeting, you will be shocked.

If there are any legal people out there who value Lever Park and it’s history, then we appeal to you to come forward with your support.

We have the ammunition loaded in the gun, but we need a legal person to fire it.

When everything is made public, you will never trust this lot again.

This is the letter that the LGO sent to Chorley which contains references to the status of the park, and indicates a need for training or act on personal knowledge. Will somebody tell us how long the Corporate Director (business) has been in the planning department ?

If training is needed, then it’s the longest apprenticeship we’ve ever heard of, so we ask the question, “For what reason was personal knowledge not used?”.

Tags: letter, LGO

Chorley Council will be having a full Council meeting on Tuesday the 26th Jan/2010.

The meeting will be at the Town Hall, Market St, Chorley, commencing at 6-30pm

Ourselves and an individual objector will be submitting questions to the Council.

The rules state that we can only ask one question each, covering no more than Three minutes. following the Councils reply, we can then ask a supplementary question.

How do you compile 18 months into 3 minutes?. If I can do that, I should be able to walk on water.

The public can attend, but can’t make any comment.

It could be a very interesting and informative meeting.

It appears we are in possesion of another quote from the Local corridors of power:

“Maladministration is a description not a definition”

Somebody should tell the LGO!

Here are the explanations of what maladministration means given by the main public services ombudsmen.
 
The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) investigates complaints about local authority services in England. Its 2008 leaflet suggests that you may want to complain about:

• administrative fault, such as the council making a mistake or not following its own rules
• poor service or no service
• delay
• bad advice

We have requested to address the full Council with regards comments made by Councillor Goldsworthy in the press in relation to the LGO findings. It appears that we can only comment on anything that is set out on the agenda, and as yet nothing relating to the Investigation is scheduled for discussion.

For what purpose do Councillors exist when matters of maladministration by their officers, are kept away from them.

Why do they sit on these committees?  Tea and crumpets anybody.

It appears Councillor Peter Goldsworthy (Leader of the Council) hasn’t been reading the same Ombudsman’s final decision that we have been viewing. He recently addressed a letter to myself stating that “There has been no violation of the Councils Constitution or the Town & Country Planning Act” and then goes on to say, “There were some administrative errors”. And then states that he would be grateful if the ongoing correspondence between us can stop.

Not satisfied with those comments, he then issued a statement in the Chorley Citizen which contained the words minor administrative flaws, and then finished off by saying “We feel we exercised our planning functions properly and in the best interests of  local people”.

We and the local people would expect that the Constitution of the Council would be upheld at all times, and therefore not to enforce the Constitution could cause serious concerns as to whether things had been done correctly or not.

We have put in a request to Council, that we may be able to address Councillor Goldsworthy and ask for answers and explanations from the Leader. We should also point out that Councillor Goldsworthy still hasn’t withdrawn his demand for an apology, when he stated that the Council hadn’t been found guilty of maladministration and demanded that we retract our statement with regard the ongoing LGO investigation.

A message from the Blackrod and Horwich Environmental Action Group:

Pilkington Quarry 83299/09

This new application seeks to change the permitted quarrying operation from 2007 to 2042. We are still questioning why the quarry has been allowed to operate without active planning permission. We also question why you would need to extend the operational life of a quarry which has already extracted all the available stone. It would be beneficial if you would make your views about this application known to the council Objections lodged as a result of previous applications do not count, so make your views about this application known.

Please remember, one comment per person not one per household.

The official consultation ends Christmas day.

In addition, if you are able to form a local residents group, please contact me on either email

Link to council planning page

www.bheag.co.uk

BHEAG email BHEAG@hotmail.com

Click on the scanned images below.

Tags: LGO, local government ombudsman

Napoleon Bonaparte—Farewell to the old guard—1814

Tony Blair—To the Irish Parliament—1991

Winston Churchill—Blood, Sweat and Tears—1940

Bill Clinton—I haved sinned—1998

St Francis of Assisi—Sermon to the birds—1220

Now lets see how many of you can guess who made this speech in 2008.

“We are aware that some residents are frustrated with the Go-Ape project and  have met with them to discuss their concerns”. I would like to assure everyone that the Council takes delegated powers very seriously and we have complied with all rules, regulations and guidelines on this planning application.

Come to the meeting on the 10th Dec, to find out whether the Ombudsman considered they had complied with all the rules.

Go Ape have opened a forum on their website to discuss their proposal for the Itchen Valley. This interesting question and answer appeared a few days ago:

Q: The Friends of Lever park claim that you applied to cut down 3 trees, but you actually felled 21 with no felling license, before you were stopped by objections. Is this true? Have you applied to fell more? Have you applied for an extra zip wire there? Is this what we can expect at IVCP? A few questions, please answer them all. Thank-you

Submitted by J on
19 November 2009

A: You are correct, there were more trees cut down than we had planned at Lever Park.  This was a mistake, and not intentional and we can assure you that this mistake will not be made again. In the initial design for the course at Lever Park, we planned for a zip wire on site 4, however this would have meant further trees being felled so we did not proceed with this plan. As a result, we have been running with a solution of a down ladder. This has reduced course flow, and so results in more people on the ground and a long walk to the next site, which is less than satisfactory for us and for other park users. We have recently worked out a slightly different design to allow for the planned zip wire which will not require further felling. We can assure you that our application for Itchen Valley will remain as it is and there will be no further additions to the course.

Submitted by Go Ape on
23 November 2009