Tuesday 17 April 2012

Loose Ends (Margate Post Office update)

Couple of meetings over the next couple of evenings. First up Planning Committee where its a suprisingly short agenda tomorrow (Wednesday). I had the pleasure of going to the Site Visit for the Post Office item and its not easy to call.

Update - Post Office application proceeds after the two houses were removed from the application. I didn't really want to talk about how I felt before the Planning meeting, knowing some Committee members read this blog, but it was clear those houses were going to be very close to the Mosque and that there would have been big planning reasons against consent were those houses to remain in the proposal. The downside of this is that the contribution to KCC will now not be required as the development has less than 10 units. The application has to go before Secretary of State as TDC is the applicant.

I hoped to be at the Full Council meeting this Thursday but there's been a late change of plan and so I will have to rely on the Council's eventual webcast. The issue which has been designed to cause disruption from the start is Equal Civil Marriage. Free votes all round I would imagine and the motion passing, as it did in Southwark Council a few weeks ago.

Parking Fees comes to its conclusion, though with three possible endings. Options are; original linear charges, flat fee charging and pay by hour with linear charges. Ive lost track of who wants what and I think everyone will be glad to be done with this issue, if only so that we have clarity as to what exactly is going to happen come June 4th...

More complexities appear towards the end with changes to Committees, caused by Cllrs Cohen and Worrow forming their new Group with Cllr Driver. Ill pay attention to this when the smoke clears. If you want to have a think about it, the latest options available can be found here

Just a quick thing I noticed a couple of days ago is the illustrative new Code of Conduct for Councillors. Bit of food for thought. What do you reckon?

This is the last Full Council meeting before the Annual Council meeting on 17th May. 

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