- You are concerned about a planning application in your road.
- You decide to send an email to the Chair and Vice Chair of the Planning Committee, outlining your objections.
- You turn on delivery and read receipts on your email so you can be sure your objections have got through.
- You send the email.
- You get an automated response back from one of them saying, “Your message was deleted without being read”.
Oh dear. That was the recent experience of former Barnet councillor Jonathan Davies (Lib Dem). Both the councillors he emailed are Conservative.
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5 Comments
I’m sure it’s probably more common than one might think – spam filters and so on.
Careful, I can read emails of up to 300 words without opening them and often delete such emails once read. If the sender has set their email for a receipt they will receive a message saying it had been deleted unread.
Had the application gone to a planning committee, the Chairman and Vice Chairman would have been prejudiced if they had read it
3.Utter rubbish
Ward councillors and planning committee members should never destroy correspondence relating to planning applications. To do so constitutes a dereliction of their duty. Read AND file.
I simply don’t understand No 3.
How can knowledge prejudice the Chairman and Vice Chairman? Are they brainless idiots incapable of coming to a reasoned judgment? Are all councillors on planning committees merely zombies there to listen politely to the spin of officers and rubber stamp recommendations in total and blissful ignorance? Like the Labour councillors in Manchester claim they do? Sounds like the Soviet Union.
Councillors are elected to uphold the public interest. Those who close their ears to constituents, or are officers’ poodles, should be voted out of office.