But it will never be independent, either chosen and paid for by the developer or chosen by the Planner then paid for by the developer. Better to get a professional (planner, EHO, whatever) to assess the bias of the report - I would have a huge problem in paying for an expert/company chosen by a Local Authority, for one it's not their money and the majority of people in LA have almost no concept of value for money. You simply cannot have a Local Authority imposing a particular expert/company on you at your expense - goes against so many EU anti-competition, anti-corruption rules it would make the Chief Officers head explode.

I also have a huge problem with fly-by-night developers who, for example, go and buy a sound level meter and undertake an ETSU rating assessment "in house". It's the job of the Planners to require "Competent" persons to undertake technical exercises or reports, trouble is that because they themselves are no longer qualified to the "Competent" level they never do. The Planners job is to assess an application, if they cannot do that, then they have to pay someone who can.

You clearly have no idea of the costs involved. A simple set of 10 photomontages produced by an Architect to the required standard costs £10,000 or more. How much do you think a landscape experts charges to attend a two week appeal hearing? A noise expert? A barrister?

Oh and good luck asking the developer if you can put your own 10m wind speed monitoring mast on their site to correlate with the background noise monitoring you are going to do.

They can't claim that they will loose money having it done as either:
1. There will be no developmental and their property will have the same market value
2. The developmental does not cause a problem and their property will have the same market value

You have that all wrong. In both cases they loose money...

1. To realistically challenge the development at appeal costs >£60K. More if you want the challenge on some technical grounds. So even if they prove their case they are likely to be at least £60K and two years worth of spare time down. Costs are almost never awarded against the developer.

2. The development goes ahead and their house price _WILL_ be affected.

This has been proved now. Only recently the ASA ruled that a wind farm developer cannot claim there will be no impact on house prices. Something that every estate agent has known for years.

In contrast the developers can play the lottery.. The can afford to submit multiple applications knowing that the profits they make on the half that are approved will more than cover the expenses of those refused.

I can do you photomontages for much less than £10k using Digital Terrain Modelling Software.
You need to shop around/haggle at those prices.

You could draw some circles around the development and contact all the residence for an opinion, would cost less than £10,000. Do some stats on the replies and then you would know if you are going to have a fight on your hands.
This could be put into legislation.

Barrister for a hearing is from £2k a day plus expenses. More for a QC.

Posted By: seascapeYou wouldn't believe how many mistakes the experts made or just left facts out. The 'environmental planners', used by the applicant, lied and used underhand tactics to diminish us - truly awful.

Similar experience here. But certainly not what I would call 'professional' behavior unless standards have slipped in the past 10 years.

It is a shame that standards are not adhered to, would make life so much easier for everyone. Part of the problem is that the marketing and PR people are now involved.

Agree Jonti

I can still remember the Environmental Consultant telling us in a sympathetic, confidential way that as the planners had recommended the the scheme for approval there was nothing we could do - stupid of them really because we found out the next day that this was not the case but it set the tone for the rest of the campaign.

At times it was amusing - ie water company executive put £50.00 in our campaign bucket trying to be friendly - didn't bother to read the info. They had one supporter, who fortunately for us was a racist. At a site meeting we were all allowed to 'have our say' and he started banging on about what a wonderful scheme it was and it was only the b....y imigrants.....etc. There was a stunned silence until the local journalist asked for the water company's response...

CWatters: Re your NDA situation - it's absolutely ridiculous. Firstly, the developer is providing a public utility infrastructure service - that's the only reason for their existence. The reasons why this would be advantageous to the public and themselves, described in the planning app/noise reports etc, should all be available for public scrutiny. Indeed, they may well be receiving incentives from the public purse to provide these services.

Secondly, one aspect of denationalisation, which concerns governments of all parties, is the lack of competition, as it was one of the main drivers of privatisation. So what you have here is a private company withholding certain
information in order to stop potential competition - it may well be ok to do this in the normal business world, but not in the case of a public utility service.

If it were me I would write to my MP, the head of which ever Govern Department monitors all this, the PM and Prince Charles, the Head of Planning and the Planning Committee Chairperson and the Developer. I would send the same polite, concerned and to the point letter to all of them on the same day - cc all. See what I got back.

Posted By: seascapeHaving been part of a campaign to fight both a water company (successful on 3 counts) and a mast company (unsuccessful) we used the FOI to get important information being denied - you waste too much time otherwise. We sent a short letter stating our requirements for information under the FOI, cc'd to various interested parties. (Don't bang on about your opinions in the letter or use the FOI for silly bits of personal info etc).

Were you able to use the FOI Act on the Water Co? I thought it only applied to government ?

Posted By: seascapeNo, we did it via various government departments, so I guess your local planning department and /or department for environment as it's to do with wind - do both (?) and make sure you cc the developer and the landowner.

Thanks. Our problem is that the planners can't get the information I want either. Only the developer and the DNO have it.