| Portsea Island, an Island Community?
Planning in Portsmouth has become a farce with Planning Committees taking "hard-wired" decisions by ticking boxes to satisfy themselves that any plan meets Government targets or planning regulations. There is an obvious objective to target certain areas of the Island in terms of offloading higher density housing to satisfy targets, not determined by the local constituency, but rather a national government. In all such decisions Planning Committees have discretion to weigh up the preferences and quality of life of residents and to assess whether or not a given proposal will have prejudicial impacts on the existing residents.
Legitimate grounds for objection to a planning proposal, that might have negative impacts on residents, are simple but extremely important. They include such matters as amenity, that is, people's level of contentment with their domestic environment and the immediate surroundings. This is, after all, why people purchased houses where they did in the first place and it is reasonable to expect that no one should be able to impose upon such people changes in that environment to which they object. Any decisions that are taken against the wishes of a group considering themselves to be adversely affected by a proposed plan on the grounds of amenity need to be weighed up very carefully. Unfortunately, the Portsmouth City Council does not appear to be made up of people who understand the connection between the expression of preferences by a community on the grounds of amenity and their own powers of discretion to decide in support of the residents and against the word of the law. The local coucillors take on the role of operatiks or agents of a Soviet scheme appealing to the more base instincts of those who consider one of the tactics of socialism is to remove all aspects of self reliance from people. Like to Bolsheviks in previous revolutions householders were force to "share" their resources and in later years, under Stalin, those who complained were packed off to the Gulag.
As the rot continues it is worth reflecting upon the fact that under English Law, it has been the nature of assemblies, forums or juries to, irrespective of the law, to feel empowered to take decisions at variance with the law and in favour of those whose circumstances do not fit neatly into the presumptions of statutes. English Law explicitly acknowledges that legislation can get it wrong in many particular circumstances and this is why there are juries. The degree to which representatives act accordingly is a measure of the degree to which governance is reflective of the community conscience, willing to uphold equity and to defend the freedom of the community they represent. The process whereby such good governance is expressed is not in the box-ticking mania of coming to a conclusion and taking decisions to meet political targets. We have seen enough examples of technocratic "performance" and "efficiency" targets mosty of which are now being considered to have been an "excess" of the former government who had lost touch with the people. The substanive issue is how decision-making discretion is exercised as a reflection of known constituency preferences. The views of people, the views of one person, are all of fundamental importance and they should be given serious consideration to the degree that the representative makes a genuine effort to actually understand the concerns and preferences from the standpoint of those expressing them.
Unfortunately, Portsmouth does not appear to have decision-makers in the Council who can rise to this standard of independent deliberation and consequent decisions and the Planning Committees, in particular, demonstrate a cavalier abandonment of the duty of care to serve the constituency. They continue on their quest to impose inappropriate standards, in the face of opposition of the Island community. Currently a significant number of people leave Portsmouth, that is Portsea Island, because the traffic, parking and therefore living conditions have become intolerable especially in the middle central North of the City. This is the result of mismanagement and maladministration by the City over a long period of time and it represents a democratic deficit which is breaking up the community.
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