A windfall for Shenstone

About six years ago, when I was a parish councillor in Shenstone, I had an almighty row with Lichfield District Council (years before I was elected to the District or County) about some money which I felt should be spent in the parish.

Flying in the face of public opinion, and against the wishes of the district council and parish council, a government planning inspector decided in the late 90s to grant planning permission for additional office development by Wall island where Esporta is now.

On the plus side he also decided that any development should attract something called a Section 106 developer contribution. In simple terms it’s a payment which goes to the Planning Authority (Lichfield District Council) to mitigate effects of building development. The money can be spent on community projects.

And that’s where the row started. I had a real problem that the money was going to be spent across the district area rather than any of it in Shenstone. Why? As far as I could see, Shenstone was taking the planning ‘hit’ therefore Shenstone should get the money….. simple! Well, simple to me.

At the time the District Council didn’t want to know; I was new to the parish council and the District didn’t know me from ‘Adam’.

Well, the long and short of it is that I ended up in a pretty serious battle with LDC. To be fair, although rather nervous about going to war (and it was almost war) with the district council, my parish colleagues backed my stance with funding for some legal advice. After several months of very heated negotiations, where I found myself and the parish council embroiled in legal arguments, the District Council finally gave in to pressure and agreed that a significant part of the funding would go to Shenstone Parish.

And that’s where we are now. The building work at Wall island, which I’m not keen on, has started and the 106 money has been paid over to the District Council. So now it’s down to the parish council to start consulting on what local project it should be spent on. A rather nice windfall of £30,000. Jean Coton, the parish council chairman, is pictured with me; she is determined to make sure local people get a real input on how to spend the money.

If you live in the Shenstone area keep an eye out on the parish council website for ways of expressing your views on what the money should be spent on.

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