Alderley Edge Parish Council are not happy that they are no longer being consulted about licence applications.
Speaking at the Annual Parish Meeting on Monday, 14th May, Cllr Frank Keegan said "Cheshire East has no statutory obligation to consult with the Parish Council anymore. They have taken the view that if CEC invites submissions from the Parish Council and residents then it will be deemed that they are inviting objections."
Cllr Mary Maczkowiak said "I am seriously not happy about this. The residents of the village have a right to say what is in the centre of the village."
A Cheshire East Council spokesperson said: "As a local authority, it is our responsibility to deal with licensing applications in a fair and unbiased way. We need to ensure both the applicants and any objectors have equal opportunity to have their say.
"In order to ensure the same way of working across the areas of each of the three predecessor districts, a decision was taken that the non-statutory requirement of notifying town and parish councils (which was only previously done in the area of the former Macclesfield Borough Council) would stop. This decision was taken after looking at the risk of challenge to decisions, which may arise if the Council could be seen to be 'soliciting' responses.
"However, town and parish councils still have the opportunity to comment on licensing applications, as do all residents, by checking on the Council website, where all applications are published. Applicants are also required to publish a notice of application in both a local newspaper and on site."
Parish Councillors agreed to write to our MP George Osborne to "express their concern about how CEC is interpreting guidance and ask whether this is the standard interpretation."
Click here to read Cllr Frank Keegan's annual planning report which was delivered at the Annual Parish Meeting on Monday, 14th May.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
In light of recent discussions on here, I am just wondering.... when can the residents say it?
I won't bore you with a great tract on the subject but suffice to say that i.m.h.o. any application is very heavily weighted in favour of the applicant e.g. objection has to be evidential; how can you evidence that an application will be detrimental to the public until after the event?
Louiise & Mike... the P.C. have accepted that the public can of course have the 20 minutes, that they wished for, at the start of every P.C. meeting and that the conditions then will be pretty much the same as at CEC meetings, which again is what was called for, by the public, at the recent Parish Meeting. So do please come along and voice your opinions.
Or you can always, if you have a particular axe to grind, talk to a particular Parish Councilor; I am often 'approached' in the park by bowlers, allotment folk, dog walkers et al.
By the way, my opinion, the 'reason' given by CEC is a piece of blatent sophistry!
The less the Parish Council have to do in dealing with village issues the better in my opinion.
Politics with a small p is how I would sum the AEPC up. Out of touch and ineffective.
My exposure with the Parish council is that they want to stand in the way of progress and debate every issue to death with little connection to the bigger picture and progress of local business.
The less power they have the better.
I agree that bars and restaurants have increased their numbers in the village and that small shops have disappeared; if we want to keep smaller shops, then we have to use them instead of driving out to a large super-market?
Jonathan...the topics above are (1) the provision of 20 minutes, at the start of a Parish Council meeting, for the public to address the P.C. It has been requested and accordingly has been agreed. Is this the P.C. standing in the way of progress? (2) that a Parish Council will no longer have any right to be consulted on licence applications. So you are in favour of that? So will you be turning up at CEC licence application hearings in future? Can you please provide some concrete examples of the P.C. being 'out of touch and ineffective' (and not just examples of where your own opinion is different to that of the P.C.). Further you accuse the P.C. of debating 'every issue to death'... of course, if we didn't debate (in public let us not forget) you might perchance accuse the P.C. of being dictatorial?
Let's not argue about whether to use 'agreeing' and 'request'; if you wish, let us say 'demand' and 'obeyed', what is important is that what the public wanted has happened.
The 'Standing Orders' of the Parish Council will be altered to formalise the '20 minute slot'; it takes a little time to do so. I provided a first draft of wording and two of my colleagues have modified that to make it better. Now the whole P.C. will either accept the wording or modify it a little more. As a bonus, we will be slightly up-dating the 'Standing Orders' in a few other places.
Congratulations? No, we've simply done what was asked/demanded of us. Are you satisfied with that?
By the way, we don't 'operate in a silent vacuum'; we discuss most of what we are about during P.C. meetings and I would more than welcome people turning up to listen to us droning on!