Lib Dem Councillor named in Private Eye shock!

10.12.59pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 28th Sep 2006

Cllr Tim O'Flaherty was named in the Rotten Boroughs section of the current issue of Private Eye (eye 1168) in connection with a planning application.

The development committee meeting on the 6 September 2006 heard an application for retrospective planning permission from Countryside Properties and Swan Housing to enable them to carry on building where they had no permission to build. The new construction was going up 10 feet nearer existing homes in Rainhill Way, Bow, than they had planning permission for. So they had to get permission to make it legal or demolish and start again.

Residents of the area who had complained to Council Officers previously had been treated as a nuisance. Indeed the Council's Officers had recommended accepting the application to make the building work legal.

Why the story seems to have made Private eye is the sheer shock that the Councillors on the committee actually had the sense to see that the residents were in the words of Cllr Tim O'Flaherty "being stitched up" and to vote against the application. Therefore unless the developers can win on appeal to the government they will have to demolish their new buildings