The Friends of Lever Park

Several people have asked for a short summary of our case against Chorley Council. Here it is:

1) Chorley’s Use of Delegated Powers.

Delegated powers allow planning decisions to be made by a small group of three council officers, rather than a full planning committee which would include elected members. They are designed to be used for small scale planning applications, typically extensions to residential properties, conservatories and so on.

Chorley disregarded their own rules on the use of delegated powers to approve planning applications. The rules specify that developments over 1 hectare must go to a full planning committee, rather than the group of three non-elected officers who operate under delegated powers. All the planning application documents state that the development is over 3 hectares. In spite of this, the final decision was still made under delegated powers.

Amusingly, when challenged over the size of the development, Chorley now say that the development is less than one hectare, because most of the development is in the trees, not on the ground. Chorley also insist that the development is a leisure development, not a commercial development and that this also allows them to use delegated powers. We have been unable to find any reference to leisure development being treated in any different way to commercial development under delegated powers.

2) Consultation

Chorley’s consultation process was flawed from the start:

2.1 Consultations or Presentations

Go Ape made presentations to Rivington Parish Council, to the Rivington and Brinscall Advisory Group and to Rivington Heritage Group. Attendees at those meeting have confirmed that they felt they were being invited to informal presentations, not formal consultations. They would have given different responses had they felt that a formal consultation was being made. They also confirm that some factual claims made for Go Ape were incorrect. Chorley Council themselves were not at the presentations and no minutes or meeting notes seem to have been kept. Its also worth noting that Rivington Heritage Group is a group almost entirely composed of United Utilities appointees.

2.2 Local Residents

Chorley have confirmed that only three properties were notified of the plans:

• Great House Barn
• Great House Barn Information Centre
• Gilsbrook Cottage

The Barn and Information Centre are commercial properties whose landlord is United Utilities. Gilsbrook cottage is three quarters of a mile from the site area. There are many properties closer to the site than this one, they include the vicarage, the primary school, the church and many more dwellings. The nearest dwelling to the site is Great House Cottage which is next door to the Barn, and yet they were not notified.  The site notices stated that “it has not been possible to contact all the nearby residents directly.” But all the local residents are on Chorley’s own electoral roll.

2.3 Ecology Consultants

Chorley insist that they took due regard to ecological reports from qualified consultants (a company called Aurum Ecology) before approving the plan. However, we question their use of consultants who can state: “breeding birds are not affected by people in trees”.

2.4 Chorley’s Own Officers

We have copies of several internal memos and emails by Chorley’s own officers recommending that the development should be rejected.

2.5 Notifications

The three site notices referred to Go Ape as being 250m from a place called ‘Great House Green’. Rivington and Lever Park does not contain any place called ‘Great House Green’ - it does not exist. It was therefore difficult to understand where the proposed location for Go Ape was.

3) The Lever Park Act 1902

The Act (drafted by Lord Leverhulme) specifically forbids commercial developments. Chorley has consitently maintained that this act is not relevant to the planning process and insists that no thought was given to the act as the planning application was approved. However it is Chorley’s duty to ensure its action comply with the law and it cannot shirk its responsibilities so lightly. The question has now gone to the House of Commons.

If there are any errors in this document, please let me know and I’ll correct them. Any errors or omissions are entirely my fault.

Tags: chorley, delegated powers

Having just read the article in this weeks Chorley Guardian, I can’t help thinking that CBC, GoApe and United Utilities have decided upon a media strategy early doors and shipped it out en masse to all concerned, to insert into any article that may question there actions. Well frankly their  response is becoming a little tiresome,hence the title, particularly in light of the gross inaccuracies contained within that response, from all parties involved. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you will, but well well.

Interestingly, GoApe state that they held an open meeting with Rivington Parish Council. What do they mean by ‘open’? Surely Tristan Mayhew isn’t naive enough to believe that a meeting that was unpublicised, so much so that only three members of the public attended ( maybe by mistake that Chris, Tony and myself found out about it), qualifies in any way shape or form as an ‘open meeting’. Tristan, you are an intelligent and highly qualified person, you alone should have known that this was a woefully inadequate attempt at a public meeting. Sadly, as a result of this, you now play the retro card by ‘publically welcoming all opportunities to discuss concerns with individuals and groups’. You attempt to ingratiate yourself to the reading masses by offering an ‘olive branch’, which continues to mislead all into believing that GoApe is good for Lever Park and your development is not only not detrimental, but indeed beneficial. Sadly it gets worse because it would appear you have convinced CBC.

As for CBC, well they do say that if you say something often enough you will begin to believe it and in this case I do believe that we are close to that point. Unfortunately CBC, we know the truth, and you know we know.

As the ground swell of support for the cause continues to grow, all concerned should be concerned as to there accountability to members of the public they either serve or hopefully value as customers. The fight goes on.

The next meeting of the Friends of Lever Park will be on Tuesday 2nd December 2008 at Horwich Liberal Reform club on Winter Hey Lane. 8.00pm start. Note that this is a new venue (as our numbers have grown, Horwich Conservative Club was unable to offer us a larger room). Here a link to a map of the new venue.

Read their edition 19/11/08, and digest the comments made by Go-ape, United Utilities and Chorley Council.

Go-ape have moved from using the word CONSULTED to using the phrase “Was in touch with”.

United Utilities are refering to Great House Barn and its commercial ventures, somebody should tell them that the Barns where set up as tea rooms by Lord Leverhulme to quench the thirst of visitors to the park over 100 years ago.

Chorley Council are still maintaining that they have CONSULTED with local people, even though we have documentary proof that not one resident of the village of Rivington was ever notified of the developement.

Thank you to everyone who turned up for the public demonstration, the turn-out was excellent.

It makes a bigger mockery of Chorley Council’s interpretation of ( No opposition ).

A fine, sunny day helped to encourage a great turnout for the first demonstration by the Friends of Lever Park.  Local media and Granada TV were also present so lets hope we get plenty of coverage.

Do you have any photos of the demo? Send them to mail@leverpark.co.uk and I’ll add them to our gallery.

Just a reminder to everyone that we are meeting at 12.30 at the Lower Barn to demonstrate against the plans for Lever Park. The weather forecast is good (well, its not going to rain!). Bring a banner or a placard if you can but its more important just to turn up! The Bolton News will be there and we’ve heard that local TV might be present, so its a great opportunity to make our views known to a much wider audience.

James Hillman is keen to encourage responsible mountain biking in Rivington. He feels that United Utilities could be doing more to help, instead of focusing on motor vehicles and car parking. Here’s what he says:

Hi

I have been following the development of the Go Ape facility with interest. I am a keen mountain biker living in Adlington and frequent Lever Park and the surrounding moor land at least twice a week.

I have found United Utilities anti-mountain biking stance quite hypocritical when they are encouraging developments like Go-Ape and doing nothing to address the issues of motor bike & 4 wheel drive access or the prevailing ’scallies’ who are building fires and dropping litter all over the place!

Whilst I understand that some of the illegal routes taken by mountain bikes are causing damage and are potentially dangerous I believe that a programme of dedicated bike trail building in some lesser used areas of wood and moorland (e.g. wilderswood, moses cocker plantation, the plantation between the school and wilderswood or healy nab) would benefit all by providing challenging terrain for the bikers and spreading the impact on the moor sensitive and over-used area of the park.

I would be interested to hear what your views are on the above and your stance on mountain biking in the area in general.

Best regards.

James

James has set up a Facebook group called ‘Save Mountain Biking in Rivington’.

What do you think? Let everyone know by posting a comment or using the forum.

Tags: mountain bike, mtb, rivington

In his comment John Smith says ” get a sense of proportion ” . Perhaps he would kindly read section 21 of the 1902 Liverpool Corporation Act, and tell me which proportion of the act did Lord Leverhulme set aside for commercialisation of Lever Park.

Does it not say FREE and UNINTERRUPTED enjoyment by the public. And its because of this that Lever Park gets over 1 million visitors a year.

Donna Hall is the Chief Executive at Chorley Council. She’s posted a comment about the Friends of Lever Park. Click here to see what she has to say. Don’t forget that you can add your comment to hers, or use the forum.