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Heather
says her hands are clean
THE nasty row simmering over the redevelopment scheme
in Euston Road, which could become quite brutish, has an antecedent
in another scheme that plagued local politics five years ago.
At that time, opponents of a proposal to redevelop Hampstead
Theatre and market site in Swiss Cottage felt cheated because
three councillors – Councillors Dave Horan, Flick Rea and
John Thane – who sat on the theatre board, and therefore
could be said to have had a conflict of interest, nevertheless
took part in the crucial vote that gave the green light to the
scheme.
This week, a similar situation arose when Councillor Heather
Johnson, who chairs the planning committee, found herself in
the iniquitous position of casting a decisive vote on the Euston
Road scheme supported by the West Euston Partnership –
the very body in which Cllr Johnson plays a significant role
as a Board member.
Cllr Johnson argues her hands are clean because she absented
herself when the Partnership discussed the project originally.
But this has a ring of unreality about it.
It would be to accept a faulty premise that she has gone about
her work as a Board member of the Partnership with a completely
shut mind during the last few weeks, if not months, while the
scheme would have presumably been, at the very least, the subject
of conversation and gossip.
In our opinion Cllr Johnson, in terms of ethics and politics,
should have stood back and not intervened in the planning committee’s
voting process.
By failing to do this, a cloud now hovers over the committee’s
decision. It is quite possible that eventually a complaint will
be made to the Standards Board.
Any councillor who sits on the board of a local grant-aided
organisation or one financially enmeshed with the council must
behave in such a manner that no suspicion of any sort can be
attached to him or her. There have been too many instances since
the 1980s where councillors have failed this test.
New Labour may have tried over the years to build- in safeguards
to protect the political integrity of councillors sitting on
various partnerships and regenerative bodies, but the row over
the Euston Road scheme illustrates that it is not always possible
to create a faultless system. Once, a local authority went about
its business as a public body – and steered clear of too
much involvement with private companies. Since the creation
of a public-private partnership under New Labour the lines of
demarcation have become too blurred. |
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