Now Cheshire County Council, with its great resources, its massive headquarters, its professional staff and its huge annual budget, has run from the gas plant fight and left it to RAP – a small group of part-timers – to fight the giant Scottish Power, even when the Council knows the gas plant is manifestly against the County’s structure plan, and is manifestly against the will of the people of Cheshire. Consequently to say that RAP disapproves of Cheshire County Council’s U-turn decision not to fight, is an all time understatement.
We ask if this is what residents can expect in future from the Council? What is the point of planning rules or structure plans if the Council will not defend them? The decision not to fight creates a precedent: a precedent that Cheshire is an open house to any industry that wishes to rip up our countryside regardless of local opinion, the environment or safety issues.
For a fundamental matter of principle is involved here. If - as the County Council say - they do not want the gas plant, and want the Secretary of State to stop it; and yet they will not fight against it because they fear the cost; then what proposal backed by a major company can ever be refused by the County Council? It is as if Winston Churchill in 1940 said “I do not want the Germans to come, but we shall not fight them if they do, because I will not pay for the bullets.”
Therefore, RAP warmly pays tribute to the substantial number of honourable Councillors who have steadfastly backed the fight against the gas plant, and who voted to continue the fight, and to support the Development Regulatory Committee’s two refusals of planning permission, and to oppose the motion that the County Council should present no evidence at the Inquiry commencing on November 19th.
Meanwhile RAP is resolved that together with CAP (Councils Against the Plant) we shall fight on. We shall fight and we shall win, because we have a strong, well- researched case which fully represents the views of local residents and which deserves to be heard.
Finally RAP points out a sickening U-turn within the County Council’s U-turn. The Council claims that it continues to oppose the gas plant, but paragraph 13 of their press release states that the Council’s first refusal of the gas plant…
“resulted in a much improved second application and a good environmental package which the Council would continue to seek to improve.”
Note the words we have highlighted. They sounds as if the Council has given in and seeks only to mitigate the consequences of a completed gas plant. Worse still – whether intentional or not – these words are an invitation to Scottish Power to put in yet another planning application, plus advice on how to word it such that the Council could approve the gas plant in practice, while staunchly opposing it in principle.
What is going on? Is the Council facing both ways at the same time? Is it hiding behind RAP? Is it hiding behind its lawyers and auditors? Is it hoping for the Secretary of Sate to ride to the rescue on a white horse and take the problem away?
Not since Pontius Pilate washed his hands, has a public body wriggled so hard to avoid its responsibilities.
Finally, and in the name of representative democracy, RAP demands that the County Council reveal the names of those councillors who voted for the proposal to abandon the fight, and those who voted to fight on.
Elections will come in due course and the electorate has a right to know.Dr John Edwards, Press and Media Officer
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