Footpath Diversion Hearing

On Wednesday, 1st February we started a two-day hearing at Leigh Town Hall regarding the diversion of a footpath in order that the Village could be built. Attached is a drawing showing the proposed diversion. You can see that the footpath starts and finishes in exactly the same place and the proposed route is more direct, avoids a substantial dog-leg that obviously used to go round the outskirts of a playing field and is about 70 metres shorter in length. The new footpath will be a little higher than it is now, will certainly be a lot less muddy during inclement weather and will be constructed in crushed stone. The net result was that everybody, including the objectors, agreed that the footpath was necessary, that it would be better for everyone concerned and would result in more people using the footpath.

Click here to view the proposed diversion plan...

At this stage you might be wondering why there was a hearing and having sat through most of it, I am still asking myself the same question. You will recall that after a few false dawns after the planning permission was granted, it was eventually realized that the proposed layout of the Village was affected by this one statutory footpath. On behalf of the Design Team, I went before the Footpath User Group a year last November, I think. This sub-group consists of all the people you can imagine who try to protect bridle paths, footpaths and things of that nature. I recall there were about 35 people there. I explained the nature of the Village and also explained that the Village would encourage much more access by people on horses, skateboards, cycles or runners, walkers or ramblers and connect the Flash and Pennington Park with the surrounding residential areas. These good people were quite happy to have the footpath diverted and by last September, after the statutory consultation notices in the paper and on poles in the area had been shown, there were just two objectors left.

Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe from Winmarleigh Gardens was one couple and the other objector was, of course, Peter Sargent of Kenyon Lane, Lowton. The Council, last September, spoke to both objectors privately and explained the intentions, but they were minded not to withdraw the objection. The result was that the hearing started this Wednesday and Mr. Sargent, with his various speeches, managed to drag it out for two days.

I sometimes wonder if some people think that we are trying to build some chemical works or a steel foundry or, dare I say it, a ski slope instead of something that is there for the regeneration of the town and for generations of young people for years to come.

Mr. Thorpe is a retired electrical engineer and seems a very nice man, but I think he is somewhat fixated about the southern end of the project being within a potential flood plain. This worry was apparently highlighted in an article in the Guardian some time ago, but the story is actually contended by the environmental experts.

Peter Sargent, supported by the ubiquitous Eric Gregson from Hayman Avenue is, of course, a retired planner from St. Helens. Mr. Sargent is a very clever man who keeps very much up to date on planning law. Unfortunately, he has a warped mind, which prevents him from seeing the main objectives. He sees himself as a self-appointed watchdog to keep the Council on its toes and to follow the rules and standards of local planning, but his pedantic attention to detail prevents him from having any kind of focused direction. He submitted over 300 objections to the unitary development plan and whilst some people might think he is some kind of harmless crank, the serious side to this is that he and his supporters tried hard to stop the Village and actually did stop Xanadu, but what I find really disappointing is that hundreds of hours of Council Officers’ time is wasted pursuing all sorts of the most minute detail when it could be directed to more useful projects.

The first witness of the hearing was John Dennis, a Chartered Geologist for the Design Team, who managed to prevent Mr. Sargent from trying to widen the discussion to being against the Village and to keep the hearing focused on the footpath diversion. There were then experts from the environmental side and the legal and planning side from the Council.

On Wednesday morning Mr. Sargent and Mr. Thorpe gave their evidence in chief. The Barrister for the Council, through asking straightforward questions, established that both of them thought that the diversion was necessary, that the proposed footpath would be less wet and less muddy, that it would be more direct by taking out the dog-leg, that it went from A to B, that there were no premises affected by the move and that in previous correspondence, Mr. Sargent had actually described it as ‘more commodious’. They both accepted that it would be better surface, that people using wheelchairs or wearing smart shoes could use it and that it would give a resultant greater capacity of use. Mr. Sargent’s arguments of course, related to his assertions that the Council had not followed procedural details. It transpired that the posts holding up the notices of diversion were in the wrong place. It was eventually established that he posts might have been three or four metres away from where they should have been! He complained about the plan, which is attached, being on the wrong scale although he acknowledged that the scale used allowed people to see where the footpath fitted in the context of the surrounding area. When asked about the surface of the path, he admitted to having ‘gone full circle’. He stated that he had been the proponent for crushed stone, but now thought, with the potential greater use, that perhaps asphalt might be more appropriate! Whilst listening to this charade unfolding before me I looked at the lady Inspector, the Barrister, the legal teams, the witnesses and the boxes and boxes of paper and maps and could not help but ruefully smile and shake my head at what was taking place.

At the end of the examination in chief and the cross-examination the two objectors and the Barrister for the Council were allowed to sum up. Mr. Sargent lambasted the Council for its inattention to detail, he quoted George Orwell and stated that not only was he the author of The Road to Wigan Pier but he was also the author of Big Brother and that was how the Council was acting. He named names of individuals in the Council and really took them to task. Of course those people were unable to defend themselves. Even though his speech, by his own admission, contained many mistakes in grammar and context, the Council clearly is not allowed to make any mistakes and he contended that its case was akin to the ‘dodgy dossier’. He accused them of obfuscation and skullduggery and you would have thought that Wigan Borough Council was the Devil incarnate.

The lady Inspector took his closing speech and gently chided him in relation to, I think, the personal remarks that he had made. I have to say that she treated Sargent and Thorpe with extreme respect and in a most professional manner and was probably mindful of Mr. Sargent’s predilection for then taking hearings to Judicial Review because of abuse of process.

As a cynical ex-cop you will have to forgive me for sometimes wondering if Mr. Thorpe’s involvement was there so that Mr. Sargent and his team could, yet again get a local man, who had no obvious earnings, to promote an application for a Judicial Review and obtain legal aid in the process. Just before the objectors, the Inspectors and the Council went off to visit the site the Inspector asked if there were any applications for costs. Mr. Thorpe declined but then, to my great surprise, Mr. Sargent made an application for costs. He had to be helped by the Council’s Barrister as to whether it was going to be a full application or a partial application. We eventually established that it was a partial application and that Mr. Sargent felt that, through the Council’s delay, etc., he had had to produce more documentation and spend more time and therefore felt that some kind of exemplary amount of money should be paid to him from the Council! I am delighted to say that the Council’s Barrister rejected his application robustly.

On behalf of everyone in the Leigh and District Sports Partnership who have grafted over the years as volunteers and without any fees or expenses being involved, this application for costs was nothing short of insulting. It occurred to me that the one thing that Sargent and Maille have in common is that they are trying to make a living as professional objectors and that on the one had they want to stop the community going forward and on the other expect the community to pay for it. How absurd!

So, we now have to wait between six and eight weeks for the judgment as to whether the footpath diversion should be confirmed and in relation to costs. The Inquiry revealed to me that there is just no point of substance of any kind to stop the footpath being diverted and that the whole debacle was simply there as a platform for Sargent to peddle his polemic and draw attention to himself.

The project cannot of course go ‘unconditional’ until this matter is resolved but I don’t think that the time will significantly delay the roll out. It still looks as if we will be on target to complete everything by Christmas next year (2007). As you know Leigh East Steelwork is complete and the roof is going on and the roll out of the College, Leigh Harriers and the swimming pool, etc. will follow. McAlpines will start on the infrastructure very shortly.

Yours in sport,

Trevor Barton.
 

Back to Project News...