Many thanks to the eagle-eyed Mr Child for alerting the world to a curiously hush-hush meeting. Membership, attendance, time and location are public knowledge. We can see the topics to be discussed. But that's it. The minutes from the only other meeting this year (in May) are restricted. The details of the topics to be discussed are restricted. Even the reasons for the restrictions aren't clear.
To pre-empt being patronised by the more world-weary amongst you, yes I do understand about commercial confidentiality - in the brief twinkle of my life to date I have been party to such things myself.
What makes me uneasy is that this is when the flaws that are inherent in democracy become magnified. Because of the first past the post system, and the shameful laziness of British voters, the winning party (at every tier of government) is almost always chosen by a minority of the eligible electorate. From amongst their own number, the winners select (or are presented with) a leader and leading team. That individual, and handful, then hold sway over the lives and livelihoods of tens of thousands. It's a bad system, but not the worst.
The secret meeting mentioned above is the TDC Local Development Framework Working Party, which formulates the spatial strategy and plan for the District. The Working Party consists of a clerk, whatever professional Officers are needed, and 5 Councillors, split 3:2 between the majority and minority parties. Party politics being the disappointing thing that it is, the odds are that the 3 will vote as one, the 2 will vote as one, and that the two groups will often vote against each other.
Thus we find Cllrs Ezekial, Latchford and Gregory determining high-level long-term strategy on e.g. KIA and Westwood, with no public, no press, no minutes. At May's meeting they apparently decided to invite Matt Clarke of Infratil to the 22nd July meeting, presumably for the Agenda item "Airport Masterplan - Presentation and report".
Infratil released their Draft Masterplan at the end of last year, and not everyone was impressed. The CPRE said that it fell so far short of Government guidelines for Masterplans, and was so lacking in key information, that it should have been completely redrafted. This didn't happen, of course. I'm assuming that the "Airport Masterplan" referred to in the Agenda is the post-consultation (remember all that consultation?), refined and finalised Masterplan. Let's hope they don't keep it secret too long.
What little I've heard about the Three Framework Councillors ranges from disappointing to lurid. Matt Clarke is more driven, and possibly brighter, than the three combined. So we have the TDC leadership (reportedly of questionable judgement and Standards) planning the future with the local representative of Infratil (extremely wealthy and increasingly urgent in their need for results).
I expect Matt to deliver a competent presentation along the lines of: co-operation will lead to jobs aplenty; non-compliance or resistance will bring closure and redundancies. He'll be pushing at an open door: they want to believe that Manston can bring thousands of jobs. He'll run rings round them. It's Brian White's job to assess how realistic Infratil's forecasts are, whether there are better and/or quicker and/or more sustainable job creation plans, and the wisdom (in terms of eggs and baskets) of actively engineering a situation where so many local jobs depend on a single fragile and volatile industry. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see the minutes.
===
Sign the petition against night flights.
.:.
To pre-empt being patronised by the more world-weary amongst you, yes I do understand about commercial confidentiality - in the brief twinkle of my life to date I have been party to such things myself.
What makes me uneasy is that this is when the flaws that are inherent in democracy become magnified. Because of the first past the post system, and the shameful laziness of British voters, the winning party (at every tier of government) is almost always chosen by a minority of the eligible electorate. From amongst their own number, the winners select (or are presented with) a leader and leading team. That individual, and handful, then hold sway over the lives and livelihoods of tens of thousands. It's a bad system, but not the worst.
The secret meeting mentioned above is the TDC Local Development Framework Working Party, which formulates the spatial strategy and plan for the District. The Working Party consists of a clerk, whatever professional Officers are needed, and 5 Councillors, split 3:2 between the majority and minority parties. Party politics being the disappointing thing that it is, the odds are that the 3 will vote as one, the 2 will vote as one, and that the two groups will often vote against each other.
Thus we find Cllrs Ezekial, Latchford and Gregory determining high-level long-term strategy on e.g. KIA and Westwood, with no public, no press, no minutes. At May's meeting they apparently decided to invite Matt Clarke of Infratil to the 22nd July meeting, presumably for the Agenda item "Airport Masterplan - Presentation and report".
Infratil released their Draft Masterplan at the end of last year, and not everyone was impressed. The CPRE said that it fell so far short of Government guidelines for Masterplans, and was so lacking in key information, that it should have been completely redrafted. This didn't happen, of course. I'm assuming that the "Airport Masterplan" referred to in the Agenda is the post-consultation (remember all that consultation?), refined and finalised Masterplan. Let's hope they don't keep it secret too long.
What little I've heard about the Three Framework Councillors ranges from disappointing to lurid. Matt Clarke is more driven, and possibly brighter, than the three combined. So we have the TDC leadership (reportedly of questionable judgement and Standards) planning the future with the local representative of Infratil (extremely wealthy and increasingly urgent in their need for results).
I expect Matt to deliver a competent presentation along the lines of: co-operation will lead to jobs aplenty; non-compliance or resistance will bring closure and redundancies. He'll be pushing at an open door: they want to believe that Manston can bring thousands of jobs. He'll run rings round them. It's Brian White's job to assess how realistic Infratil's forecasts are, whether there are better and/or quicker and/or more sustainable job creation plans, and the wisdom (in terms of eggs and baskets) of actively engineering a situation where so many local jobs depend on a single fragile and volatile industry. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see the minutes.
===
Sign the petition against night flights.
.:.
Posts
6 comments:
Begging bowl for night flights
Begging bowl for -£400,000,000 BA
Aspirational Masterplan
Shouting 'why complain?' at me at the KIACC meeting
Matt Clarke has bared his soul to the public as far as the airport is concerned. What could possibly be commercially sensitive that its behind closed doors? Closure date? Change of use?
Brian White's a useless cunt. End of.
Wow, what a brave comment to post anonymously. Your mother must be so proud of you.
Anon 1:19 - try harder.
It will be interesting to see how the Local Development Framework Working Party (zippy title) squares this secret meeting with TDC's constitution which says that decisions should be "efficient, transparent and accountable to local people". No documentation, no press, no public - just a cosy meeting with a commercial operation who wants something from TDC? Hmm. Whatever the purpose of the meeting might really be, it will be hard for TDC to satisfy constituents after the event that this was a perfectly legitimate and above board meeting.
I've heard on the grapevine that Brian White thinks the airport is a marvellous idea and that he's all for it. After all, he's not from round here and can always move on and bllight somewhere else once the night flights become irksome for him. So Matt will in all likelihood get a round of applause after his presentation.
It's all a bit of a stitch-up really. How depressing.
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