If there's one thing in life that you can rely on....

...its that you won't get a straight answer from a planning officer!

Having left various messages for our planning officer since her voice mail message changed from "?? is on sick leave", to "This is ??'s phone, I'm not here, please leave a message" I naturally thought she had returned to work. As my telephone messages hadn't elicited a response I found an email address for her today and whacked off an electronic missive asking her to call me. An automated response sped back announcing that ?? would be out of the office until 9th February. So, plan B - email the general planning address, and lo, I received a call this afternoon from a colleague of ??. Yes - you guessed, ?? was still on sick leave. Having explained that I wanted to hold a review meeting with my planning officer before the end of the consultation period (11th February) I was informed that one of the senior planning officers had looked at my application, and thought that it would "probably be recommended for approval", but that it would have to go to the full committee on 11th March for their review. Why can't a planning officer accept some responsibility and give a straight answer? After all, the planning officer will make a recommendation to the planning committee, so why not tell me?

However, before I could vent my frustration, I was informed that there was some considerable doubt as to whether the Section 106 Agreement would apply as ours was a modification to an existing approved application that pre-dated the implementation of the 106 Agreement. This is the agreement that now imposes a "tax" on new builds, which even for a one bedroomed property is about £3500, whilst for a three bedroomed house is £12,500. Fingers crossed on that one then - might even change the design to create a second bedroom if we hear that we are not liable!

Frustrated of Clifton