• The post you are reporting:
   
  Well, I promised you a reply when it came from DDC and here it is :-
  
  Dear Mr Frost,
  
  Thank you for your email of 31 May asking about DDC expenditure regarding the above. Whilst it was addressed to me, it actually touches on wider areas of the Council and so this is a comprehensive reply.
  
  There are a number of issues here but it is worth pointing out that these are major challenges akin to those posed by the Channel Tunnel proposals and it is vital to protect the District's interests.
  
  The Harbour Revision Order is a Parliamentary process concerning very major proposals (I am sure you will have seen the DHB submissions) running to a very short timetable and is something we have never had to address before. The same is true of the Voluntary Transfer including Community Trust which has never been done anywhere in the country and if it gets off the ground will be the first such trust formed against this statutory framework.
  
  You will appreciate that DHB have engaged considerable help including eminent lawyers with specific expertise and we needed to ensure that we had corresponding expertise where necessary. As it does not make sense to have such expertise routinely available in DDC the only recourse was to buy it in judiciously.
  
  I can confirm that in essence we only went out for legal advice and representation. My Planning team has done a great deal of work on the HRO and, we did not engage external planning consultants. The only money spent on external technical advice was fairly minor relating to air pollution and noise specifics to complement work carried out by my Environmental Health team.
  
  Legal advice and representation was sought externally for two reasons. As explained we needed expertise in what is a very niche field and also to provide capacity as we were already fully committed when these processes came along. Our own lawyers have continued to work alongside the external team of course.
  
  In addition it is not just a simple case of whether questions were "too hard" for officers to answer. A deal of understanding of the processes at work is necessary to know what the questions are in the first place. Effective representations also involve matters of tactics and presentation and the lawyers we engaged are highly conversant with Parliamentary process amongst other strengths.
  
  I believe the submissions that DDC made do demonstrate that money has been spent wisely to protect the interests of the people of our District and would venture to suggest that we would otherwise have been open to a charge of failing to do so. Even so the expenditure pales into insignificance in comparison with the amounts being spent in promoting the HRO and Transfer.
  
  Yours sincerely
  Michael Dawson
  Head of Development and Public Protection
  
  I have, of course thanked Mr Dawson:-
  
  Dear Mr Dawson,
  
  Many thanks for you reply to my queries and covering all the points I raised.
  
  Personally I would wish my council to concentrate on clearing my bins and de-icing my pavements and leave development to free market economics!
  
  I suspect that if we had had council planning departments In Brunel's time the GWR would terminate at Slough instead of Paddington, and we would still be awaiting the result of a public enquiry, where every council on the line of the projected railway was employing legal advice and representation to protect the supposed interests of local inhabitants!
  
  I see that you are also head of 'public protection' which I presume is the people who come round and demonstrate condoms in PHSE at local Secondary Schools?
  
  Best wishes
  
  Bob Frost

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