A Planning Committee due to take place on January 7th has been cancelled. This is the second planning meeting to have been cancelled in the last few months. New home building has been brought to a halt under Labour. The only thing they have achieved is to rename the committee itself in a pointless rebranding exercise.

Cllr Adam Connell, a Labour councillor for Addison Ward is the Chairman of the Planning Committee.  As a result of this he pockets a an extra £5,664.70 as a “Special Responsibility Allowance” on top of his basic allowance of £8,940.

The July 15th meeting lasted 40 minutes.

The September 10th one lasted 2 hours and 7 minutes.

The November 12th one lasted 1 hour 33 minutes.

I gather that the one last week (the first one to actually approve any new homes) went on for around two and half hours. The new homes, of course, offered a “contemporary” (ie ugly) design – intended to please planning officers rather than residents. I don’t blame the applicants for this – they have to meet the “requirements” of the planners. I suspect Cllr Connell is too busy counting his money to take much interest in either how many homes are built or in what they look like.

So, anyway, a total of six hours and 50 minutes for him to sit through.

With the January one cancelled there won’t be another until February 18th. So for those eight months Cllr Connell collects £3,776 – two thirds of the annual allowance – for chairing a meetings for just under seven hours. That comes to £540 an hour.

Since Labour took over they have decided to spray £150,000 of your money at the management consultants Deloitte. Plus another £1.5 million for lawyers and consultants to facilitate the privatisation of the entire council housing.

But even by Labour’s fat cat standards £540 an hour is on the high side.

Of course Cllr Connell, like his Labour colleagues, won election with populist class war, bash the rich, rhetoric….

I have emailed him to ask if he feels justified in continuing to claim his full SRA.