Ban lobbying of councillors (From Echo)

Ban lobbying of councillors

8:51pm Saturday 4th September 2010 in

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At a recent meeting of Southend Council’s planning and development control committee, I was shocked at the lobbying councillors are subjected to.

Developers and others with pecuniary interests should not be e-mailing and writing to councillors to explain their plans when the council already has officers to present these applications and to answer councillors’ queries.

At this meeting, one of the members of the ruling Conservative group pointed out that lobbying of magistrates was against the law, so why wasn’t this the case with planning?

I hope the chief executive will ban lobbying and make the planning process more democratic.

Anne Chalk
High Street
Shoebury