ASDA planning application

Below is the text of my email sent to Barnet Council opposing the ASDA proposals in New Barnet.

I wish to record my opposition to this planning application. The site borders my ward along its western boundary and will have a significant impact on residents across the whole of High Barnet Ward. My specific objections are;

Excessive increase in traffic

Roads in the area are already stretched to capacity. The additional load that ASDA calculates will occur is not viable. The railway creates pinch points on the road system that cannot be overcome. There is no possible way to ameliorate the effect of a new supermarket of the size that ASDA propose.

Size

ASDA’s proposals provide far more retail space than is required in the area.

Housing

The proposed housing is not of the type we most require in the area. We need affordable family homes.

Business

The ASDA scheme will cause a major threat to existing business’s both in New Barnet and High Barnet. The viability of Waitrose in High Barnet and many smaller retailers will be threatened. High Barnet High Street is already badly hit by the current credit crisis.

When good scrutiny goes bad

The working party looking at the Council’s investments in Icelandic banks has until this evening been an example of good scrutiny. This evening the draft report was being considered by the full scrutiny committee and Tory councillors were clearly under orders to water the report down, push the blame entirely onto the officers for the failure to follow the treasury management strategy and absolve the leader and chair of the Cabinet Resources Committee from any blame what so ever. They also tried to implicate the audit committee who in fact were constitutionally unable to have been involved in the whole affair.

The meeting was a farce. The treasury officers present were actually proposing amendments to the report which the Tory members were quite happy to incorporate without any discussion or thought. This is what led to problems in the first place, the blind trust in officers without any critical analysis of what they were proposing or any questioning. The draft report was a cross party effort and although it wasn’t perfect it was a good report.

I couldn’t support the final report and I firmly believe that it is unconstitutional. The Tories threw away a good piece of work in order to save the neck of their leader. The public how ever are not daft. Many Tories in Barnet will have thought that they were getting an administration whose values were thrift and good governance. What they have actually got is a group that puts their own financial welfare ahead of welfare rights and care of the elderly. Who refuse to take responsibility and who regard the scrutiny process as a nuisance to be ignored.

The value of good scrutiny - part 2

On the 28th October last year a report was produced called ‘Council deposits in Icelandic banks – Supplementary report’. The report was a report of the the Leader and Cabinet member for resources who is of course Mike Freer. The report is exempt which means that I cannot tell you what is in it. However I can tell you that it was the information contained in this report that alerted the working party on Icelandic banks that the treasury team had not followed their own strategy.

Given that it was very clear in this report that there was a problem then it seems to me that it must be equally clear that the owner of the report must have known this to be the case. If he didn’t then either he didn’t read his own report, or he didn’t understand it. If a committee that as far as I know has no banking experts on it can spot the problem then surely someone with a background in banking would see it straight away?

The value of good scrutiny

The value of good scrutiny made itself evident this week. I am part of a scrutiny committee working party looking at the council’s decision to invest in Icelandic banks. The working party interviewed officers and Cllr’s about their role in the decisions that led to those investments. We also looked at all the reports that have been produced to date both public and exempt.

It quickly became clear that something was wrong with the way the treasury management team had followed the treasury management strategy. Quite simply they hadn’t followed it and no-one had noticed for three years. In fact a staggering 89% of the council’s deposits were deposited against the agreed strategy including the Icelandic bank deposits. None of the departments internal audit processes had picked this up nor had the external auditors.

As you will see from the local press one officer has already resigned. As usual in these circumstances someone is the fall guy. The problem with this is that it fails to recognise the systemic failure of the department as a whole. The lack of checking, effective audit and the failure of external scrutiny are damming. This has to be acknowledged.

The somewhat hysterical press release from Mike Freer the leader of the Council was what we have come to expect from him. However he cannot escape culpability for this. He was both Leader of the Council and Chair of the Cabinet Resources Committee which is responsible for the treasury management strategy. He insists that he was misled by officers but why did he not ask them for evidence that they had followed the strategy? Portfolio holders must take responsibility when mistakes occur, especially on this scale. We saw this in Haringey with the Baby P case. The cabinet members tried to hang on but it was never going to happen. This lost money is far less tragic but the principal is the same. If you are charge then you are responsible. Ignorance of the facts may be bliss but it’s no excuse.