What the Papers Say (2)

Marc McLean at The Lennox Herald devotes half a page to the Judicial Review verdict. The article doesn’t appear to be online so if you click on the thumbnails below, you’ll be able to read it.

My own quote is as follows:

“Those of us concerned about Dumbarton Town Centre have said for years that
our own local authority has not acted in the best interests of regeneration
of the area. At last someone with the means to challenge this has come along
and we now have judicial proof of the modus operandi at work in the council
particularly amongst the officers. It is my sincere hope that this is the
beginning of a new era for the regeneration of the town. Business for
Dumbarton is not seeking preferential treatment, just fairness within the
law and a genuine desire to build a better Dumbarton.”

I am totally with Peter Dolan in his comments which centre on us all working together. As I have said before an anchor store (be that a Tesco or whatever) in the town centre will present its own challenges to the independents but we have realised that in this climate, bigger stores are a necessary part of bringing people back into a town centre. The alternative was the further development at St. James and Jermon’s plans and continued investment being put in jeopardy.

I sincerely hope that there is no appeal to this decision which will condemn stakeholders to further rancour and disagreement over an extended period. That will take up time that we simply don’t have. The departure of the WDC Director of Planning offers the opportunity of a new start and a new approach.

We also hope that Jermon will support us in the quest for improving access to the High Street where they have done such a good renovation job on the old Co-op building. Watch this space.

How to Kill off a Once Thriving Town Centre

This is a recent article from the Sunday Herald. I have used the original headline. It can be seen in its original context HERE
but I have reproduced it in full. Much of this sounds very familiar.

Joanna Blythman on Kirkcaldy

I CAN’T believe that Sarah Brown is thrilled at the prospect of spending weekends in Kirkcaldy, not if she fancies a stroll down the high street, that is.

If I were her, I’d find it profoundly depressing, not to mention embarrassing. By now, downtown Kirkcaldy should be a standard-bearer for the whole New Labour project, testament to Labour’s able handling of the economy and its commitment to taking people out of poverty.

It is, after all, her husband’s adopted home, his very own Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency, and he is no marginalised Old Labour MP, but PM, former chancellor, finger on the power button and all that.

It’s not as if he can turn around and say “It’s nothing to do with me” and point the finger of blame elsewhere. Historically, Kirkcaldy was a Labour fiefdom from top to toe. By now Brown should have galvanised civic leaders into action.

But passing through Kirkcaldy last week, it reminded me of the bleakest towns in Sicily, minus the sun. Towns that have lost the war against “abusivismo”, or illegal building.

Places where the mafia has siphoned off every euro cent of aid money, leaving a prevailing sense of hopelessness among the population as hopes of progressive change are repeatedly crushed. The difference in Kirkcaldy is that we aren’t dealing with gangsters. Decision, after perfectly legal planning decision boils down to year after lamentable year of Labour municipalism.

The New Economics Foundation was pretty restrained, really, when it surveyed Kirkcaldy in 2005, the year that Gordon Brown became the new constituency’s MP. “Walking down the high street bears little recognition of the fact that this was the birthplace of classical economist Adam Smith and the place where Gordon Brown was brought up.

Not only has Kirkcaldy recently been named one of the poorest places in Britain, but our survey of the busiest part of its high street shows that it is on its way to becoming a clone town.” The NEF only hinted at the scale of the problem.

The great Scottish architect, Robert Adam, another native of the town, would be mortally affronted by Kirkcaldy’s present state. Walking along the desolate high street of a balmy evening, the centre was eerily empty. The retail mix on offer may even have worsened since the NEF considered it.

A proliferation of dilapidated empty premises, shored up by charity shops, gaming parlours and shops that will, for a fee, cash your cheque, no matter how deep in debt you are. It is clogged with building society branches and estate agents but nothing so useful as a butcher or a greengrocer.

There’s just enough of the older, historic buildings left to whisper what a solid, handsome architectural heritage Kirkcaldy must have had, before the civic worthies got round to tearing it down to make way for shoddy concrete follies.

Actually, you could use Kirkcaldy as a case study in how to kill off a oncethriving town centre. Number one: Identify the busiest street and pedestrianise it. In modern times, Scotland has not been blessed with the most talented architects and planners, but when are they going to realise that pedestrianisation only works on a large scale, as exemplified by cities such as Strasbourg and Verona, where well thought-out, extensive pedestrianisation is supported by good public transport and park-and-ride schemes?

Piecemeal, tokenistic pedestrianisation as we know it in small-town Scotland is a proven disaster.

Number two: Compound this error with a one-way system around the pedestrianised area so that the whole momentum of the road layout encourages people to bypass the centre, rather than spending time in it.

Number three: Say yes to every planning application for edge-of-town retail parks and supermarkets. With their bays of free parking they act as giant Hoovers sucking all the retail life out of the traditional centre, killing off independent shops. I’m talking about Kirkcaldy, but the same calamitous policies have devastated previously bustling centres such as Peterhead, Kilmarnock, Fort William and Arbroath.

There’s something called the Kirkcaldy Renaissance Board, which, among other goals, is set on regenerating the waterfront area. Good luck to it, although the word “regeneration” sends a chill down the spine.

The planning crimes of today were yesteryear’s ambitious regeneration proposals. And with so many corporate snouts in the trough offering to “anchor” developments whose benefits are generally over-hyped, you can’t help wondering if the town, like so many throughout Scotland, is just looking up at the next impending round of planning blight.

True to its clonetown genre, Kirkcaldy now has two shopping malls straddling the high street, the ailing sort now referred to in the US as “dead malls” or “greyfields”. Doubtless these featured prominently in previous regeneration plans.

It’ll take a damn sight more than spindly trees in concrete planters festooned with fag-butts and naff municipal “street furniture” to reclaim Scotland’s deadbeat town centres.

Scots town planning has been crap – let’s admit it and charge the Scottish government with drawing up a radical new civic planning strategy that could create town centres we can feel proud of.

What the Papers Say.

For the Dumbarton Reporter take on the Judicial Review decision (on page 11 of the paper) click here. In the hard copy of the paper the council is said to be “disheartened” by the decision.

The Reporter also has a piece on the same page about the closure of Branches furniture shop (see below) but that doesn’t seem to be on their web edition.

Judicial Review Matters Arising.

Paul McErlean has given Jermon’s first public reaction to the Judicial Review verdict on this blog. (see comments section on “Jermon Wins”). I felt his comment was gracious in that there was no spirit of triumphalism. Rather Paul made clear that Jermon were only doing what they had to do to protect their investment and therefore the regeneration of the town centre.

From Business for Dumbarton’s point of view I have now read the judgement in full and would like to precis the relevant points in Lord Clark’s decision. I have done this below and have highlighted bold the passages which are of particular relevance to the town centre. The important points arising from this are that it would seem that West Dunbartonshire Council has clearly acted contrary to law and against the best interests of the viability and vitality of Dumbarton town centre. They did not properly consider the impact that their decision would have on the wellbeing of the town or on the precarious state of town centre footfall largely brought about by their own previous decisions. The judge highlighted that there should have been no use of the term “acceptable” when referring to the 3% downturn that the council anticipated would result from the development in the town centre.

Over the next few weeks as everyone comes to terms with the implications of this decision there will be many questions asked. I would like to ask the following: Were the council prepared for the decision going against them? Is this the real reason that a 56 year old officer “retired” shortly before the decision was made public? Is it also the reason why another officer closely involved in the decision has left the council? Who will be accountable for the failures highlighted in the judgement? Most importantly, what measures will now be put in place to genuinely support the town and begin to repair the damage arising from this and previous decisions?

Robert Ryan (Chairman Business for Dumbarton)

Here are the main points of Lord Clark’s decision.

1) “In my judgement the passages quoted from the affidavit betray a misdirection by the respondents as to their duties under the Direction in relation to applications for developments to be located wholly or partly on land owned by them or in which they have an interest. In such a case if the proposal is contrary to the development plan that triggers the requirement to notify. Category 13 is not qualified with any words such as “significant” or “material” departures, (in contrast to the position with regard to e.g. category 8). The report 7/48 of process, in my judgment was deficient in that it does not face up, fairly and squarely, to the issue of whether or not the proposal was contrary to the development plan. The content of the affidavit, in that connection, might be seen as involving something of an attempt at an ex post facto rationalisation about the matter. While I completely accept a good deal of what was said by the respondents and the interested party, about (a) the need to avoid requiring planning reports to be overloaded with express references to every relevant policy and (b) the appropriateness of using shorthand references in such reports, it still remains the case that the reasoning, and the material upon which it relies, must be intelligible and adequate as Lord Clyde put matters in The City of Edinburgh case at page 50.”

2) “it seems to me that the informed reader of 7/48 of process would be left unclear, ultimately, as to whether and, if so in what respects, the compiler of that report considered the proposals to involve a departure from the development plan. I am left with the distinct impression that that was done deliberately by the use of words such as “acceptable” or “unacceptable”. There is an element of equivocation to be found in certain of the paragraphs, in the report, to which the petitioners referred. I agree also with senior counsel for the petitioners that in paragraph 5.9 of the report, which deals with questions of impact, the writer has left matters completely in the air as regards his conclusion with regard to the retail impact of the proposal on the town centre and the sequential approach to such matters. The fact that the petitioners had recently obtained planning permission for their town centre site required, it seems to me, that these questions were addressed against the relevant planning polices which with much more clarity than appears in the report. Senior counsel for the petitioners was also, in my view, well justified in saying that the respondents and the interested party could not take refuge in the reports submitted on behalf of the developer which had not had regard to the position of the petitioners’ site having obtained planning consent.”

3) The good practice referred to at paragraph 35 in PAN82 has not, in my view, been followed in this case. That good practice, is reflective, in any event, of what is required, as a matter of law, in the production of decisions in this field namely that the decision maker should make clear its reasoning so that interested parties can properly assess their rights on the matter. I consider that the informed reader of 7/48 of process is left in a state of uncertainty as to whether the writer of that report is saying that the proposal was (a) contrary to the development plan or not, (b) if so in what respects there was a departure from the development plan, and, (c) if so, why, nevertheless, the proposals should be granted. The decision which followed upon that report and relied on its reasoning is therefore inadequate in its reasoning in the sense described by Lord Clyde in the passage cited supra

4) Moreover, and in any event if, as seems at times to be accepted in the affidavit referred to, the proposal did, contrary to what was submitted on behalf of both the respondents and the interested party before me, involve a departure from the development plan (though not “significant”) then it fell to be referred to the Scottish Ministers being a class 13 proposal in terms of the 2007 direction. That it has not been so referred is contrary to law. The social and political reasons for requiring referral of planning applications in the class of category 13 to the Scottish Ministers are obvious. The need to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest on the part of authorities, like the respondents, in dealing with such applications means, in my judgment, that these provisions should be followed with some care. They are not to be regarded as technical matters. In the present case, the sensitivity of the matter was, in my view, all the greater because the respondents had themselves previously imposed the condition as being necessary to support the vitality and viability of the town centre and this was the basis upon which the Scottish Ministers had previously considered the matter. There was, in that situation, a very good reason why it was appropriate for the Scottish Ministers to be asked to consider the matter of the proposed change of position in that respect.

The Full Judicial Review Judgement.

Click Here for the full judgement from the Court of Session.

Jermon Wins!

Jermon Group has won its Judicial Review against West Dunbartonshire Council. The legal judgement has far reaching consequences for Dumbarton Town Centre. Jermon’s argument was that the granting of permission for seven more units to be built at St. James Retail park was wrong. Their grounds were that proper procedure had not been followed and was against the best interests of the town. Today’s verdict upholds that opinion.

Dumbarton Snapshots

Scottish Pipe Band Championships

I have taken the following info from the West Dunbartonshire Council Website. This event is one of the highlights of the year in Dumbarton and we look forward to welcoming visitors from near and far to the town.

100 Pipers Pipe Band Championship 2008

The annual Scottish Pipe Band Championship will be held on 24th May at Levengrove Park, Dumbarton from 8.00am – 6.00pm and promises to be a fantastic day of colour, spectacle and fun.

Attracting over 130 pipe bands annually from the British Isles, Europe and further beyond, this spectacular event celebrates iconic Scottish culture and tradition. With funfairs, stalls and many other attractions this really is a great family day out. What’s more its free!
100 Pipers Logo

For further information contact:

Events and Halls Section: 01389 738762

Visit The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association’s Website for further information on pipe bands and upcoming piping events.

Another Long Established Business Goes.

Another long established Dumbarton business has now gone. Scott Newlands* owner of the Branches furniture store has battled on for the last two years despite the terrible loss of trade he has encountered as a direct result of the traffic management system. To his credit Scott kept his assistant Andy in a job as long as he could. In a conversation with Scott last week he told me that the traffic regulations had cost him two thirds of his turnover and it had become impossible to continue. I sincerely hope that the loss of yet another well run quality business will increase the urgency for WDC to do something about the traffic management situation. Having completed our consultation we will be putting forward our plan to them soon.

Meanwhile one of the architects of the traffic plan, Irving Hodgson has, we hear, resigned from his position at West Dunbartonshire Council. It was Mr. Hodgson who proudly proclaimed in 2006 that “West Dunbartonshire Council has given Dumbarton High Street back to the pedestrian.” Those pedestrians now have another empty shop to peer into and another to let board adorns a shop facade.

It’s a disgrace, and a situation that Business for Dumbarton will do their very best to help turn around.

*Edit: In a senior moment I had got Scott’s surname mixed up with another BFD member. Apologies for any inconvenience caused – now sorted.

A Crucial Week

The result of the Judicial Review into West Dunbartonshire Council’s decision to grant permission for seven more retail units at St. James Retail Park is expected on Wednesday (21st May). The outcome of the action raised by Artizan Centre owners Jermon Group will have far reaching consequences for Dumbarton High Street and town centre. Jermon are arguing that the decision was against the best interests of the town and was also in breach of planning policy.