PIP

Once the process of evaluation of a planning decision is completed a decision is taken. A decision is not an idea or an intent but rather the irrevocable allocation of resources to a specific action so as to achieve a specific objective. Decisions can be taken with the objective of harming specific segments of the community such as the stakeholders, that is, those affected, by the outcome of the implementation of some approved plan. Combined with prejudicial prevarication and a proactive refusal to assist segments of the community to prepare adequate proposals, then time deadlines can result in enforcements, such as evictions. Prejudicial enforcements is a term coined in specific relation to the abuse of Article 178 of the Town & Country Planning Act under which some of the most detrimental decisions to the livelihood of familes has occurred in the United Kingdom.

The significance of this term for Portsea Island takes on a different import however in the sense that approved plans can have the effect of punishing those living in the areas where they are implemented. This is certainly true of badly prepared high density housing projects. Whether such effects occur as a result of intent on the part of the Council or as a result of sheer ignorance of the issues involved, or the plain incompetence of the political partyu system is addressing constiutuency needs is subject to analysis. Is it the result of the intellectually-shackled nature of councillors to party dictats and discipline causing them to have a tendency to shrug their shoulder and blame the planning legislative monster? Is this the result of rampant corruption? Is there a conspiracy theory? Well, to resolve these and other possible explanations there is a need for closer analysis.

The term prejudicial enforcmeents arose where councils can organize evictions without using competitive tenders so that quite often fees charged can be exorbitant. In 1994 a Conservative government repealed the provisions Caravan Act of 1968 and introduced guidelines encouraging members of the Romany and Traveller communities to purchase their own land. However, this ended up as a trap for many. Without having broken any law many families were faced with a discriminatory rate of planning application refusal, up to ten time the rate of normal applications. In most cases local councils did not provide guidance as to how to satisfy requirements but used Article 178 to organize elaborate and excessively expensive evictions employing private security firms. This resulted in land being confiscated "to pay for the eviction and costs" and the families concerned losing all of their assets and their children being disinherited.

The issue raised here is that the planning environment is one where procedures and the law can be used with effect to discriminate against segments of the community, they have been applied with ease to prejudice the general status of Travellers and Romani. No matter what people feel about this, the main lesson is that under the current British constitution and legislative provisions, decision-makers can agree to target any other specific segment of the community for equally harsh treatment, for example, segments of the Portsea Island community, perhaps chosen on the basis of post code? The decision as to who will suffer is never likely to be stated in a political party manifesto or posed as a question in a referendum so it is never a conscious community decision but rather a decision taken behind closed doors by those with powers of decision-making.

¹ See, "Prejudicial enforcements", ECRE, Portsmouth, Hampshire 2005. McNeill, H.W., "The Briton's Quest for Freedom - Our unfinished journay", Prejudicial enforcements Note 45 pp. 362, Hambrooks Publishing Company, Portsmouth, Hampshire, ISBN: 978-0-907833-01-7, 2007.