Corruption at the SDNP, resignations, and stars aligning
As you might know we have been seeking the support of South Downs National Park and Lewes District Council for our ecological community farm. We made planning applications in order to:
extend our licence to live in our mobile home as agricultural workers
convert an area of one of our barns into a farm house
Freedom of information
When these applications were refused we used our rights under the freedom of information act to see the emails behind the scenes of our applications. What we discovered was pretty revealing to say the least.
Here is a taste of what South Downs National Park were saying about us:
“These individuals who used this appeal and have now lost are part of a terrible divisive culture... at least this (crazy scheme) is now likely to die as I suspected from the outset.”
“Who knows what the new owners are up to - a case of newbys arriving from hove via London and not much clue getting some land that no farmer would touch for the price the last owners were asking..”
The emails also revealed that an SDNP officer had sent our confidential application and an internal report to a member of the public who was organising objections to our plans. The officer ensured that our application was released to a small but vocal group of objectors in our village before they were permitted to be released to the wider public. The officer and the recipient agreed that this was necessary in order to offer more time to organise objections.
The correspondence referred to 'quietly alerting' Kingston's new district councillor ahead of time too. It reveals that the councillor then helped to set up a special public parish meeting solely to discuss our application – which we were neither made aware of or invited to.
The emails also revealed meetings and much correspondence about our applications between our neighbour William Meyer and the SDNP officers at all levels who were responsible for making decisions on our applications. As well as being our neighbour, William Meyer was a SDNP member, a planning committee member, and co-director of a commercial Ltd company alongside SDNP CEO Tim Slaney.
Investigations
The behind the scenes emails suggested that corruption and malpractice were happening at different levels of the organisation. We learnt that if we wanted to complain, SDNP members and SDNP officers require separate investigations according to the authority's rules.
We requested an investigation into implicated SDNP members, but following our request William Meyer resigned. Although the authority admitted that corruption and malpractice were suspected, they said that there was now no requirement for them to investigate.
We asked for a high level investigation to be made into implicated SDNP officers. This was granted and carried out by Paul Beard. However it was reported that not all key officers were available to take part in the investigation, and that a comprehensive investigation into officers was difficult in the absence of the parallel investigation into members.
Nevertheless the investigation made its conclusions:
Regarding the sharing of our confidential application information the investigation reported that the member of the public organising objections in the village 'had not been sent anything which would not subsequently have been made public'.
Regarding our neighbour having meetings to influence decision makers regarding our applications, it was concluded that although his house is just a few meters from our farm, William Meyer had no pecuniary or unfair interest in those applications, and that officers were right to meet with him.
Regarding the 'colourful language' that was used about us behind the scenes (examples above), the investigation concluded that there was no need for fellow officers or members to either challenge or report it at the time.
Paul Beard concluded that officers had done no wrong.
There was one aspect of our complaint that Paul Beard neglected to investigate. This concerned comments and information sharing by the then CEO Trevor Beattie. A few days after the investigation report was released Trevor Beattie announced that he too would be leaving – and he retired a few weeks later.
Reassurance
Having done all that we could to try to hold our public servants to account, unfortunately we were still at a point where we had to deal with the SDNP and Lewes District Council authorities further. Our business plan required us to exercise our permitted development rights to offer five guest rooms at the farm. These rights were established by the Govt to encourage farms like us to diversify. We were however understandably very concerned that the authorities would continue to find ways to refuse our applications.
We decided to write to Tim Slaney the new SDNP CEO (formerly the SDNP Planning Director responsible for our application decisions). We wanted reassurance from him that we would be able to exercise our permitted development rights without interference. He reassured us that, as with all planning applications at SDNP and Lewes District Council, decisions are made fairly and professionally, and 'It would be unfair to act in any other way and I will not let that happen.'
Permitted development
Our subsequent permitted development 'Prior approval' application for guest rooms was refused by Tim Slaney's team at Lewes District Council. After our call for transparency about this decision, planning officer Chris Wright admitted that although he had refused the application on highway grounds, there were in reality no such concerns from the Highway Authority.
He also admitted that he was unprofessional in his desire to take into account the feelings of a small group of unhappy local residents for a simple permitted development application – one that does not legally permit any resident views.
Following this we decided to try exercising the simplest of all permitted development rights. The team at Lewes District Council were required to administrate a 'Prior Notification' for change of use of a particular barn to guest rooms. This could not possibly be refused unless the notification related to an area over 150sqm (it was well below 150sqm).
Our notification was at first misregistered and then mysteriously disappeared. After applying again officers made an unprecedented decision to deny our permitted development rights again - making a highly unusual and complex legal interpretation of a single word in the legislation. In the words of a retired senior planning consultant this decision appeared to be 'going to incredible lengths to try to refuse your prior notification on such an obscure basis'.
Following pressure from us Chris Wright and the team at Lewes District Council admitted that they had indeed misregistered the notification, had failed to seek any legal advice, and that in fact the right decision was to accept the notification - which they then did.
Where are we now?
For a time it seemed that our whole project was under threat and we would have to sell up. If we in the UK are to make the shift to agriculture that works for people and planet, it is crucial that smaller scale regenerative farming is supported. This means encouraging farm workers to live on site, and allowing farms to diversify. As can be seen from our story, the harsh reality is that decision makers like Lewes District Council and South Downs National Park will do whatever it takes to make sure that this doesn't happen.
However! a few months ago the stars aligned for us. A converted barn adjoining Lovebrook, once part of the farm and sold off years ago, came up for sale. To cut a long story very short, we managed to find a way to buy this converted barn and our family are now very happily settled in! We are feeling very grateful and relieved.
Unlike most start-up regenerative farmers like aweside farm and allwood farm though, we are the lucky ones. Now that we live on site the farm is continuing to thrive – hundreds of visitors coming through our gates every month as part of our community wellbeing programme, social prescribing partnerships established, lots of Kingston villagers volunteering, 1000 trees planted, increased biodiversity and soil health, veg box scheme established, art trail created with local artists, more workers employed, multi-generational nature club up and running, and now we run year long trainee regenerative farmer courses.
So will LDC and SDNP ever be held to account?
Sadly all our successes have been hard won despite these two authorities' best efforts rather than because of their support. Although the problems here seem to be systemic, it's also true that everybody makes mistakes, and everybody has lapses in judgement - including our public servants.
Now that we are able to spend all our energies to focus on our work here at Lovebrook rather than wasting time trying to hold these two authorities to account, we are left wondering this: for the sake of continued confidence in the planning system, will either of these authorities have the integrity to admit what happened here and say sorry?
If you are curious about this, please feel free to email tim.slaney@southdowns.gov.uk and Zoe.Nicholson@lewes.gov.uk to find out.
Do you have confidence in the planning system?
If you are worried that you (or countless other local planning applicants) have unknowingly been discussed and treated in the same way as us behind the scenes, you could email your local MPs if they have a constituency in or around South Downs National Park:
Arundel and South Downs
andrew.griffith.mp@parliament.uk
East Hampshire
damian.hinds.mp@parliament.uk
Lewes
james.maccleary.mp@parliament.uk
Winchester
danny.chambers.mp@parliament.uk
Chichester
jess.brownfuller.mp@parliament.uk
Wealdon
nusrat.ghani.mp@parliament.uk
Havant
alan.mak.mp@parliament.uk
Brighton Pavilion
sian.berry.mp@parliament.uk
Thank you for reading,
Rich, Hannah, Max and Bella
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