Make sure he has that little snippet as well.

my local councillor is getting BT Infinity this friday, she let slip

hope some shame will spur her on to help our predicament

she managed to be at our local rag photo shoot with a colleague of hers who used to be involved in planning, he seemed to have some searching questions on the bizarre placing of the conservation area boundary running through our estate, and the removal of BT's permitted rights.

still not had any reply from the planning dept....

hopefully story will be in the main local paper, Essex County Standard tomorrow.

Be sure to let us have a link, as would like to run it on our news

The estate, it is part of the old barracks that has been sold off? One problem with digging almost any hole in Colchester is the number of roman artifacts in the area

it was a military hospital and barracks here before, i understand.

i understand they built a new £1bn garrison, and sold off all the old barracks for the 1000's of houses being built here :/

colchester has been, and is for years to come, the fastest growing town in the country :/

seemingly, without the necessary infrastructure :/

as far as im aware there has been no objection regarding possible roman artifacts. i think i won't mention that to anyone dont want to give these jobsworths another excuse to refuse

i will post link or scan of story if published, was led to believe it would be in both local rags, but time will tell.

Artifacts aren't a problem unless somebody digs one up.

Given how shallow the concrete base is on a FTTC install, it is very ulikely that anything will be found.

I can belive though how incompetant the planning department is though.

We had plans for town redevopment drawn up and as the county planning office was 10 miles away they didn't come and do any surveys they just worked with maps of the town.

There was over 20 stupid ideas floated in the so called plan and it was only the credit crunch in 2008 that put the whole crazy thing on hold.

I wonder if BT were formally notified of the removal of their statutory rights? And if so were they given the opportunity to appeal against them?


Did you ask the councillor how the cabinet that serves her was given approval - I know it might not have been required but it would have caused her to squirm!

she's actually been helpful, and definetly supportive.

from what Ive unearthed any "normal" cabinet application has been approved.

only ones in conservation areas or affected by a listed building have been denied.

this isnt the only cabinet that the council have refused.

the decisions have been made, i understand, under delegated power, ie by the planning dept. not by councillors on the planning committee.

still not heard from BT, email auto response said reply within 7 days, but nothing yet....

I wondered if she was the one who was not interested ...

Delegation - in my LA, means that it is passed to one Councillor to consider on his/her own and they have just the planning dept comments. Rarely do they go against the advice.

In reply to a post by MHC:

I wondered if she was the one who was not interested ...

Delegation - in my LA, means that it is passed to one Councillor to consider on his/her own and they have just the planning dept comments. Rarely do they go against the advice.

In my LA I believe that delegated decisions are just that - delegated to the Officers - I have just gone through planning for a house extension which was delegated.

I certainly would not expect a peice of street furniture to be anything other that delegated unless it was highly controversial.

Where I used to live (which has been live for FTTC for over a year) planning has just been granted for a 288 line Huwai CAB in a conservation area although all works have long since stopped.

Strange thing is it is PCP number 1 and it is about 20 yards from the telephone exchange. There are two other CABs within the conservation area which were put in with the original roll-out - both within 50 yards of the exchange and covering mainly shops and commercial premises!

It seems odd that BT would bother with these three CABs which would be dificult, the area is already able to get up to 15 - 20 Mb/s download (they are nearer to the exchange than I was) and the residential area is not particularly desirable IMHO.

BT are strange!

In reply to a post by MHC:

I wondered if she was the one who was not interested ...

Delegation - in my LA, means that it is passed to one Councillor to consider on his/her own and they have just the planning dept comments. Rarely do they go against the advice.

not sure if i can name or shame people on here

the original councillor i went to was a male, and as Ive experienced from another matter (and talking with other residents), useless and completely unsupportive or helpful. I approached him first cos i know he's involved in the planning processes.

I then approached my female local councillor, who I have found helpful, supportive, and interested in helping us get the cabinet.

I am not sexist, political or anything else.

I would state what party they represent but not sure if i can.

but that has been my experience so far with dealing with this.

one of my neighbours is trying to get hold of the original councillor to discuss this matter with him, will be interesting to see how he reacts.

As far as I know, which is little, a lot of these "small" matters are delegated to the planning dept, who have a "case officer" in charge. In my experience with massive churn, they may only have 12-18 months experience in their job.

the joy of LPA's....