I see according to the NWN that Greenham Parish Council has objected to the new Primary School at Sandleford.

Newbury Town Council has approved.

Swift Half has stated he agrees he believes it is a ploy to ease in approval for the Sandleford housing development.

So how does it work when voting as he sits on Newbury Town Council and Greenham Parish Council? Has he voted against the school whilst sitting on Newbury Town Council?

Or is it a case of when voting it's No No Yes Yes depending what Council meeting he is attending?

Or just a case of saying whatever the audience he is talking to want to hear?

Swift-Hook isn't on the NTC planning committee, though he is a named substitute so he can sit on the committee in the place of another members who can't make it. When the planning committee met to discuss the new Sandleford primary school (Highwood Primary) on 6 March Lib Dem Cllrs Day and Gardner didn't turn up and they should have arranged for substitutes, but neither of the Lib Dem substitutes, Cllrs Vickers & Swift-Hook, turned up either. The other Lib Dem on the committee, Cllr O’Keeffe, supported the plans, but she isn't a members of GPC.

So nodded through with a wink then?

A wink, a nod, a brown envelope.

So Swift Half able to state he did not vote for approval to Greenham precept payers! How convenient!

He could have turned up, voted against it and the result would have been the same.

It emphasises the reason why a Councillor should not represent two parishes¡
If Greenham people are against and Newbury for and he votes no and yes or abstains or in this case does not even bother to turn up then he is not representing the electorate surely?

What this illustrates is the pointlessness of asking parish councils what they think about planning applications. Planning, and most especially strategic planning, should be a technical appraisal against local plans, and there's some scope for local involvement in creating those local plans so that they capture local distinctiveness, but the assessment of whether an application passes those criteria should be an objective professional one.