THURROCK Council's planning committee will meet this evening (Tuesday, 13 October) under a new chairman, who is a former champion and campaigner for the Campaign to Protect Rural England – now known as the CPRE.

Elected in May as the Reform councillor for Orsett, Steve Taylor has a wealth of experience of Thurrock planning as he has sat for several years as a non-voting member of the planning committee.

He was a regular thorn in the side of planning officers and developers, frequently challenging green belt development across the borough.

However, since joining the committee earlier this year as its vice-chair and voting member, he has given his backing to several contentious developments impacting the countryside.

He succeeds councillor Russell Cherry as chair.

Cllr Cherry was recently appointed to the cabinet as portfolio for Veterans, Enforcement & Environment, though there is no public record of his resignation as chair of planning, thereby creating a vacancy which has to be filled by a process outlined in the constitution.

Outside of the annual meeting a vacancy for a committee chair has to be formally created before a nomination for a replacement can be made by political group leaders.

The appointment of a new chair then has to be agreed by council members.

The appointment of a vice-chair also has to undergo the same process because the posts carry a special responsibility allowance and must be able to be scrutinised. Cllr Jack Fuller has been named as Cllr Taylor's successor as vice chair, but his appointment has also been included in a vote that the public had no knowledge of.

On the night of the meeting, councillors were asked to discuss and vote on 'changes to committee and outside body appointments'. Working from a non-published order paper, councillors were asked to make decisions en bloc. No verbal details of those individual decisions were given.

The most important change within that en bloc vote was the election of Cllr Taylor to the chair of planning for which he is entitled to an annual additional allowance of £9,595, a substantial leap from his allowance of £2,399 as vice chair.

Ultimately, on the evening, the watching and listening public had no idea what was affected by the vote or what councillors were voting on. It was, by most definitions, a vote in secret.

There is no doubt that ahead of a full council meeting on Wednesday, 30 September, its members worked from an agenda which included a revision of committee memberships following the change of political balance when two Labour councillors won seats in Grays in summer by-elections.

The requirements of rules 27.1, 27.2 and 27.3 of the constitution were followed in that there was an item on the agenda on political balance that highlighted allocation of places would change marginally, with Labour due to have a place on the planning committee.

However, there was no mention in the meeting documentation of a resignation or a nomination for change of chair.

Nub News understands any permanent appointment or change of a committee chair must be included as an explicit item on a published full council agenda.

There are a number of differing views on how the constitution can be interpreted but there is certainly legal opinion that if a full council meeting attempts to, or appoints, a permanent committee chair without listing the item of business on the public agenda beforehand, the appointment would likely be unlawful and open to legal challenge.

Given the nature of planning decisions and the voracious appetite for developers to challenge the council if it sniffs any reason why a council decision might not be legal, ie recommended by a committee chair who was appointed incorrectly, the situation appears to carry risk for the council.

There appears no obligation to actually name the person nominated.

News that there had been a change of chair only came in the publication of minutes of the meeting several days later.

In the 46 seconds it took Mayor Bill Cook to deal with the matter of 'Appointments to Committees and Outside Bodies, Statutory and Other Panels' no information was given. There was no formal vote taken and councillors did not appear to respond, other than with silence when Cllr Cook asked the question 'Do members agree to the nominations on pages two to three of the order paper?' No hands were raised or vocal indications given.

It is a moot point whether 'appointments to committees' is the same thing as voting on a new chairman. Thurrock Council's constitution appears to state they are two legally distinct processes but it is fair to say there are vagaries in the constitution about the procedure for appointments.

There appears one 'loophole' the council could have followed rather than publish details in advance. There is capacity for a change to be made as 'a change without notice', detailed in section 16 of the relevant chapter of the constitution.

Effectively it is an 'emergency' mechanism to bring matters to the council that missed the deadline for prior publication. It says full council can: "Elect a Leader or to appoint any other member to a position of authority, i.e., Chair of a Committee, where a vacancy exists in such office."

However, aside from the fact there was no formal vacancy, a motion of notice should be declared as separate from (or an addition to) business on the agenda. Mayor Cllr Bill Cook neither accepted nor gave any notice to members.

Nub News editor Neil Speight, himself a former independent councillor, says the matter raises concerns about the legal capability of the council to enact its business without risk.

He says: "On the face of it this may seem a trivial matter to get uptight about, but it is vitally important the council does these things correctly. Making decisions for expediency off order papers on matters that should be in the public domain, is not acceptable.

"We are all well aware of what not doing things correctly in Thurrock led to – a billion- pound wipe-out of the council.

"In the wake of that the council was given very strict guidance by government-appointed commissioners about how it should conduct its business and how it was imperative to follow the letter of the law. And even above that, it was instructed to act with transparency in mind.

"I don't see how a secret order paper and a lack of information for the public on a high-profile appointment is transparent.

"On the face of known information, it appears the change of leadership on the planning committee does carry some legal risk and it certainly appears to be shrouded in unnecessary secrecy. There appears the distinct possibility the appointment of Cllr Taylor may have broken the council's own rules about appointments of chairs.

"But I'm only a barrack room lawyer. I do have a record of spotting legal mistakes in council procedure in the past, most notably stopping a full cabinet meeting because it had been convened illegally and decisions it took were therefore open to risk.

"But I'm not a barrister or anyone with legal qualifications like some of the highly paid people running the administration of the council. I'm just an irritating journo who likes straight answers to straight questions.

"I have raised this issue with the council and its new CEO ahead of tonight's meeting. Had I got a response, there might have been no need to write this story. But I have had no response.

"I am not pointing a finger politically. I have no issue with Cllr Taylor taking the chair and indeed expected that to happen when Cllr Cherry joined the cabinet a couple of weeks ago. Similarly, in his short time on planning Cllr Fuller has shown he has a detailed eye for the subject and has spoken very well and asked many pertinent questions. He is proving an asset to the council.

"This is targeted at officers, not councillors.

"I am merely concerned that this council may be continuing to replicate the errors of the past and leaving itself open to risk.

"And don't forget, this is a council quick to judge others. Drop a fag butt in the street and they will be on you like a seagull on a chip. In fact, the same legal eagle who is at the top of the tree running that department, is also the person in charge of writing the rules for the constitution. If he's going to insist ordinary people have to play it by the book, he should be damn sure bureaucrats are doing the same."

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This evening's meeting of the planning committee, which begins at 6pm, will be live-streamed and can be watched via this link.

UPDATE: At 4.47pm today, in response to a very detailed set of questions from Nub News, Thurrock Council issued this statement.

"The appointment of the Chair of Planning Committee was lawfully made at the Council meeting and meeting all publicity requirements, as previously stated. No concerns have been raised by Commissioners or any other person about the legality or transparency of the decision. The Council is confident that any challenge to a Planning Committee decision on this ground is unlikely to be brought and, if it was, would almost certainly fail."