Friends of the Earth Birmingham Action Briefing Oct-Nov 97

The Public Inquiry See Saw

Win, Lose, Win but Lose again

The public inquiry process is a strange animal. It saps your energy, it makes you feel empowered as well as belittling you in the teeth of 'Mammon', it allows you to have your say against powerful companies and is an excellent media stage upon which to put out our wares. We have recently had the results of three public inquiries here in the West Midlands. The first successful one was the Merry Hill expansion which was thankfully thrown out much to the joy of local residents, environmentalists and traditional town centres across the region.

The second two were far more controversial. The decision by the Government to go ahead with the Birmingham Northern Relief Road will have a huge effect upon our work here in the West Midlands for years to come (see the previous article for an update on the BNRR -Ed.). The inspector's report seemed to ignore most of the environmental arguments against the road and as the decision finally proved this was an economic decision, made on economic grounds. The Labour party will live to think hard about this decision not only for the difficulty Midland Expressway Ltd will have in bringing this scheme forward as a private scheme but for the legacy that will follow of the need for more road-building to accommodate it. An estimate from Government's own figures is that in the London to Manchester corridor alone the total price of road widening will be £1.8 billion. Now if the capacity added to the motorway network by the building of the BNRR was taken out then a lot of that widening could be cancelled. Irrespective of our views on the Public Inquiry process in both of these cases the Secretary of State agreed with the independent inspector and made a decision that broadly followed the inspector's conclusion from the public inquiry.

However, in the Peddimore case we have seen Labour in its true blue colours. The Peddimore application was from the West Midlands Development Agency to develop land to the east of the Sutton Coldfield bypass for a large micro- electronic plant and help diversify the region's economy. The land is conveniently owned by the City Council who gave their friends planning permission. Around the same time P&O Properties Ltd placed a planning application for land on the other side of the Sutton Coldfield bypass which the City refused on Green Belt grounds! The debacle had to be sorted out and a public inquiry was held into both cases.

Alongside local residents and other groups, we made our case largely based upon the grounds of Green Belt incursion, increased traffic and the suggestion that we should seek to divert inward investment to the inner cities where people live. We WON! The inspector recommended that neither site should be developed. He also stated that if one of the sites were to be developed, in exceptional circumstances, that the one closest to the existing built area should be allowed. This would mean the P&O site and not the site owned by the City Council. Mr. Prescott then made his decision and agreed with the inspector on the P&O site and rejected the application BUT disagreed with the inspector on the Peddimore application and gave the development the go-ahead. This has been seen as scandalous behaviour. Even the Birmingham Post (not known for its support of green groups) stated on the 23rd August 'The disgraceful victory of Birmingham City Council in the Peddimore inquiry'..... So we won the Public Inquiry against massive vested interests BUT LOST the decision.

What price the environment John Prescott? In yet another twist to this story on September 11th the Birmingham Post ran a front page story on the topic of the 'Green Belt Con' with the West Midlands Regional Development Agency admitting that they never had any prospective client for the Peddimore site.

Beverly Cumblidge