I had given up on my blog because I was finding it too time-consuming, but I'm taking it up again because I am really angry. And unlike my previous posts, this is political!
Several times in recent years, planning applications for developments that will affect my ward have needed my attention. Each time, I diligently read all the documents, talk to residents and planning officers and draw on my local knowledge to decide my response. Each time, I have chosen to oppose the application for a variety of reasons, one of which is traffic. And each time, it has been traffic that has been the deciding factor when the application came before the Development Control Committee, and the applications have been approved almost entirely on the strength of the traffic reports.
A great deal of weight is given to traffic reports, to the extent that no amount of opposition from local residents has any affect at all.
These reports are produced using computer models and based on surveys carried out over time and at various locations. All very logical. But how accurate are these computer models? Can we trust them?
I recently had a meeting with three officers charged with drawing up such a report and I asked them whether, once a development was completed, they went back in a year, and perhaps five years, to conduct exactly the same surveys, so that they could determine whether their predictions had been accurate. Apparently not. Yet, until they do exactly that, how can they, or anyone else, have any confidence in these reports that planning departments afford so much weight.
In my opinion, this is completely unacceptable and makes a nonsense of 'localism'. We should all be demanding a thorough review of the planning process, with regard to traffic, and locally I intend doing exactly that. If the Localism Act is to mean anything, we must challenge this sort of tyranny.
