ANNEX A: Comments on your provisional findings.

I have numbered the paragraphs in your letter for ease of reference

It should be noted that the five crucial elements of our complaint are:

1. The planning officer lying to planning committee in 1995,1998 about light conditions for the application.

2.      The Chief Executive lying to you in a previous investigation.

3.      Loss of light, specifically winter sunlight.

4.      The planning Inspector's appeal refusal of 1994.

5.      The BRE Good Practice Guide on light.

Paragraph 9. 'I have carefully considered...'

Read the 'Draft Key Facts' not your bogus 'previous findings.' I realise you are in a very difficult position because your previous cover up has been exposed through the Freedom of Information Act. This is not our problem it is yours. The draft key facts and our comments on them are now relevant.

Paragraph 11. 'Having reviewed...'

See paragraph 9 above. Your Investigator has identified in the key facts Para 56. Mr Miles identifies that the former special projects officer's report is not disputed by the current officer responsible for sunlight and daylight - this report identifies that winter sunshine conditions cannot be met. The Council own light calculations for 2005 permission state the same 'winter sunlight conditions cannot be met' as does our own consultant's report. Finally the photographs that we have provided you with prove it.

Paragraph 12. 'I have not found evidence...'

The issue here is loss of light not 'tinkering with the front design and roof The 2004 application was rejected for loss of light. There was no difference to the loss of light in the 2005 permission. It does not take much logic to work out therefore that the 2004 concerns had not been overcome.

Paragraph 13. 'Councillors had sufficient....'

Once again this statement is not true. In his written brief to committee, the planning officer gives no guidance whatsoever to committee about the 1994 Planning Inspector's report, he makes no mention of our Consultant's report on light and he says that the loss of light is acceptable even though his own light report states 'winter sunlight requirements cannot be met.' In addition you now have our photographs which prove conclusively the truth.

Paragraph 14. 'The officer's report...'

Once again LGO's selective choice of evidence, perpetrating cover up. You have reached no conclusion here, for obvious reasons. Additionally, once again you are selective with the evidence against us and for the council. What about the Inspector's statement of 'turning the corner to the full extent of the site, overwhelming sense of enclosure, loss of light etc. etc...'

Paragraph 15. 'The report noted...'

This statement is entirely incorrect and once again you have reached no conclusions. The BRE Good Practice Guide on light refers to light availability, reduction of that light availability. It also refers to winter sunlight availability and reduction of winter sunlight availability. Most importantly and vital to our case is Sections 2.2 and 2.3 of the BRE Guide which we provided you as enclosure 1 to our complaint which you have entirely ignored.

Paragraph 16. 'The report concluded...'

Once again you have reached no conclusion. How can daylight levels be acceptable if they are reduced below the guidelines of the BRE Guide?

Paragraph 17. 'The report further...'

Once again you have reached no conclusion. The statement is biased and selective. No mention of winter sunlight requirement which the report states 'cannot be met.'

Paragraph 18. 'Councillorsconsidered...'

This statement is incorrect. The scaffolding only represented the height not depth of the development and as a representation for loss of light, the issue, it was completely inappropriate as light was streaming through it. This is a red herring which once again you have grasped in your biased interpretation of matters. What is you conclusion here?

Paragraph 19. 'I have not found evidence...'

If you ignore evidence presented to you, you are bound not to find it! This is entirely what you have done here. You have also ignored not only evidence we have presented but damming evidence from the council that we have obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The building is a part three/ part four storey building. In the written brief to planning committee it was stated as a part two/ part three storey building. The planning officer admitted at planning committee that it was a part three/ part four storey building when we accused him of misrepresenting the facts. The plans and photographs we have sent you also testify to this.

I further quote from the letter dated 14 September 1998 obtained by me under the FOI Act from you and signed by your D.J. Pollard 'His (planning Inspector's) paragraph

I1  also makes it clear that a building no higher than that already permitted at 8 West Street could be acceptable.'

The building is now finished and it is considerably higher than that already permitted at 8 West Street.

Paragraph 20. 'I have carefully considered...'

Once again no conclusions for obvious reasons. As stated in the main body of my letter, you are prepared to countenance cover up of perjury for a Local Government Chief Executive. His statements are incorrect based on the Council's own light calculations, on our Consultant's light calculations and on the very obvious and incontrovertible fact that to make a statement like this you have to look at more than one window to make a comparison. I do not 'consider that my property and those of my co-complainants are adversely affected by the development etc;' this is a fact supported by the Council's and our own light calculations.   If you only look at one window you cannot state that it is a 'worst case.'

You say you have not seen evidence that the Council ignored our consultant's report in granting the 2005 permission. Where is the evidence that they did take it into account? See Para 21 below

Paragraph 21.

Again another incompetent attempt to cover up. Your statement is incorrect. Our report was a material consideration to the planning application and as such should have been presented to planning committee. The fact that it was not, is because it was damning evidence of a corrupt planning officer misrepresenting light loss on our properties, not a 'matter for his judgement' Your statement at what the BRE Guide and our report represent, are both wrong and totally incompetent. I suggest you reacquaint yourself with the facts and evidence. Our consultant's report is the standard professional model for assessing sunlight and loss. Presentation semantics cannot disguise the fact that both the Council's documentation and ours arrive at the same conclusions - the BRE requirements on light cannot be met. The fact that our consultant uses two days as examples cannot disguise the fact that his model has looked at available sunlight for every second of the year for all the windows concerned. That he gives the number of hours available is easily converted to a percentage from the data in his model. His presentation was deliberately made understandable for planning committee to grasp. Unfortunately they were never presented with the evidence!

Paragraph 23. 'For the reasons..'

This is the most amazing statement. In all of the paragraphs above you have given no reasons whatsoever, just made statements based on either incomplete or incorrect or most importantly, ignored evidence. It is not even an intelligent method of covering up. If this is the best you can do, then I fully understand why Local Government is so incompetent and inefficient. You must produce a Report.

Paragraph 24. 'For the reasons...'

In every case of comment above there is evidence of procedural fault. This is within your total ambit of responsibility. You have chosen to manipulate the situation and cover up the true situation by ignoring facts, by twisting facts and by making entirely unsupportable statements with no evidence at all. Most importantly after doing this you have arrived at no conclusions on each of the points above, save for paragraph 23.

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