Quote:
Originally Posted by garinda
Well we'll just get rid of the apostrophe, change a word to plural, and then it's still true.
'Seems our councils are whores.'
Attaching promises of gifts to planning applications, doesn't mean that they'll necessarily benefit any area in the long-term.
It is akin to dropping your drawers, if the price is right. |
Whoever, whether they were Tesco or an engineering company or a manufacturer would have had to pay 106 money regardless of who they were.
It's not a gift, it's a payment that is expected by law for any major build. They don't pay any more, in fact, I'm pretty sure that Tesco are very astute and would pay the bare minimum.
So, it doesn't make much difference - Tesco would have had to pay it whether they were trying to get a site in Hyndburn or London and any other company would have to pay it if they wanted to build on that site in Hyndburn.
It is supposed to benefit the area around the build i.e. repair anything that has been made ugly by the build - replacing trees etc - or benefitting local businesses in the area.
It's also a standard thing in a lot of countries - I know they do it in Holland and USA, so I'm pretty sure it's standard in Europe. So, I'm fully in support of 106 money, I think every business should support the community and businesses in its wake. Of course, how the Council spends it once it's got it is the important thing.
However, I take your point that Council's should only give planning permission if the building is strategic and I agree with you there. Plans had been drawn up to extend the Arndale and they were in talks with Sainsbury's (I think) to go into the extension. Then Tesco came along and didn't want to go into the Arndale so looked at other sites. Of course, the minute Tesco started getting serious Sainsbury dropped out because it wouldn't have been worth their while and at that point the rest of the plans got shelved because the bigger units wouldn't have got filled.