Peterborough Panthers 2023

[Mick Bratley]

10 hours ago, arnieg said:

Given the volume of objections I think it quite likely that it may not make it to the Nov meeting, I'm guessing Mick will have picked up some hints from officers as to the likely timetable.

I’ve tried to get an understanding of the likely timetable from a variety of decent sources, basically no one has a clue who, when and how a decision is made. As a guide, AEPGs retrospective application for the car maintenance was put up for discussion in March of this year, the planning department have recommended to refuse and there’s a planning meeting about it on October 17th. If we use that as a guide, we may hear some progress in February 2024. But essentially, I haven’t got a clue. LOL

[OldNutter]

Assuming the application goes to the planning committee, there are some really serious rules that the councillors will have to follow.  Actual members of the committee will be voting on it after all the discussions at the meeting and the rules governing what they can and cannot do are very strict, so even if they have been convinced the application should be rejected, they must not say or do anything to display those feelings or they will be barred fro voting when it comes to that in the meeting.  For instance they cannot really speak other than strict information only.  This can be a bit depressing for people have objected because it seems as though the deck is stacked against them in the meeting - that is because it is.  Facebook and Twitter(X) can be quite deadly in these circumstances.  Councillors who are not on the committee can speak for or against the application, so it is worth identifying those councillors and making sure they get the majority of the lobbying . There is a document spelling all this out at:https://democracy.peterborough.gov.uk/Data/Council/20050914/Agenda/$050914 - Council Report - Annex A - Planning Code of Conduct.doc.pdf Sections 7.5 to 7.8 are worth a couple of minutes reading if you are going thinking of going to the meeting.

Based on my experience, the chairman of the meeting will be ruthless about who can officially speak and how long they can speak for.  Both members of the public and non-committee councillors will probably only get 3 minutes for their session.  Where it can get interesting is if there is a decent number of members of the public there.  Those in the public gallery cannot officially speak, but they can get a bit rowdy up to a point before getting told off (shades of "order, order").  For example, one of the official speakers will be the applicant (presumably Butterfield) and it would not be surprising for the public gallery to get a bit noisy when he comes out with the sort of BS we have become used to.   At that point, the chairman will probably have to intervene to quieten things down (hopefully) but the level of discontent having to be put down can have the desired effect without having to use any words.  For instance, nodding heads, rolling eyes, muttering etc of the sort you see and hear in the House of Commons, can work wonders for communicating discontent or disapproval without words or permission to speak and that can influence the members of the committee if they think things are not quite a as right as they might have thought.

With the numbers of objectors to this awful plan, despite many of them not strictly in line with planning challenges, there can be no doubt about how badly the public consultation phase has actually turned out during the pre-planning stage and this is very important in the scheme of how the planning system should work.  Huge numbers of objections are not supposed to happen in the way the system operates properly because the pre-planning moves are supposed to iron out all that stuff with proper believable realistic plans being produced in line with the Local Plan and local wishes - no surprises is the order of the day.

And one final gem I picked up is that the plan as it has been tabled cannot be changed once it is presented, so for instance the planning committee cannot say it might work if you changed it a bit Mr B -  he would be told he  will have to go back, change the plan and re-submit it again once updated and go round again or appeal the decision using the law.  It is a strict yes/no gate at that meeting and Mick has shown how important that looks like being to the future of the showground.

[arnieg]

8 hours ago, OldNutter said:

Assuming the application goes to the planning committee, there are some really serious rules that the councillors will have to follow.  Actual members of the committee will be voting on it after all the discussions at the meeting and the rules governing what they can and cannot do are very strict, so even if they have been convinced the application should be rejected, they must not say or do anything to display those feelings or they will be barred fro voting when it comes to that in the meeting.  For instance they cannot really speak other than strict information only.  This can be a bit depressing for people have objected because it seems as though the deck is stacked against them in the meeting - that is because it is.  Facebook and Twitter(X) can be quite deadly in these circumstances.  Councillors who are not on the committee can speak for or against the application, so it is worth identifying those councillors and making sure they get the majority of the lobbying . There is a document spelling all this out at:https://democracy.peterborough.gov.uk/Data/Council/20050914/Agenda/$050914 - Council Report - Annex A - Planning Code of Conduct.doc.pdf Sections 7.5 to 7.8 are worth a couple of minutes reading if you are going thinking of going to the meeting.

Based on my experience, the chairman of the meeting will be ruthless about who can officially speak and how long they can speak for.  Both members of the public and non-committee councillors will probably only get 3 minutes for their session.  Where it can get interesting is if there is a decent number of members of the public there.  Those in the public gallery cannot officially speak, but they can get a bit rowdy up to a point before getting told off (shades of "order, order").  For example, one of the official speakers will be the applicant (presumably Butterfield) and it would not be surprising for the public gallery to get a bit noisy when he comes out with the sort of BS we have become used to.   At that point, the chairman will probably have to intervene to quieten things down (hopefully) but the level of discontent having to be put down can have the desired effect without having to use any words.  For instance, nodding heads, rolling eyes, muttering etc of the sort you see and hear in the House of Commons, can work wonders for communicating discontent or disapproval without words or permission to speak and that can influence the members of the committee if they think things are not quite a as right as they might have thought.

With the numbers of objectors to this awful plan, despite many of them not strictly in line with planning challenges, there can be no doubt about how badly the public consultation phase has actually turned out during the pre-planning stage and this is very important in the scheme of how the planning system should work.  Huge numbers of objections are not supposed to happen in the way the system operates properly because the pre-planning moves are supposed to iron out all that stuff with proper believable realistic plans being produced in line with the Local Plan and local wishes - no surprises is the order of the day.

And one final gem I picked up is that the plan as it has been tabled cannot be changed once it is presented, so for instance the planning committee cannot say it might work if you changed it a bit Mr B -  he would be told he  will have to go back, change the plan and re-submit it again once updated and go round again or appeal the decision using the law.  It is a strict yes/no gate at that meeting and Mick has shown how important that looks like being to the future of the showground.

There are a lot of wise words here.

Re the final para I think it is quite possible that AEPG will revise the application now before it goes to ctte in attempt to head off some of the arguments, which could delay the process by several months.

Oh and those councillors you are seeking to influence may well read Panthers social media as a result of being lobbied, so try and remove all those references to councillors taking 'brown envelopes'. Nothing is guaranteed to lose the sympathy more quickly of someone whose voice could be an important one in our favour.

[Councillor of 18 years]

[Deano]

2 hours ago, arnieg said:

 

Oh and those councillors you are seeking to influence may well read Panthers social media as a result of being lobbied, so try and remove all those references to councillors taking 'brown envelopes'. Nothing is guaranteed to lose the sympathy more quickly of someone whose voice could be an important one in our favour.

[Councillor of 18 years]

I read brown envelopes all the time on cov’s Facebook group as well. It’s frustrating as it just makes our job harder.

[Crump99]

2 hours ago, arnieg said:

Oh and those councillors you are seeking to influence may well read Panthers social media as a result of being lobbied, so try and remove all those references to councillors taking 'brown envelopes'. Nothing is guaranteed to lose the sympathy more quickly of someone whose voice could be an important one in our favour.

Good advice 

[JoeW436]

No Hans Andersen at todays meeting?

[IainB]

10 minutes ago, JoeW436 said:

No Hans Andersen at todays meeting?

It's a pretty p155 poor line up for a "farewell" to a track meeting!

I shall toddle along because I haven't seen any live Speedway in ages... but it sums everything up quite nicely, Panthers going out with a whimper

[bigcatdiary]

32 minutes ago, JoeW436 said:

No Hans Andersen at todays meeting?

I was told all his equipment went back to Denmark after his last match for Berwick, shame as I think he should have been included bearing in mind the massive part he has played in our history.

[Mick Bratley]

22 minutes ago, bigcatdiary said:

I was told all his equipment went back to Denmark after his last match for Berwick, shame as I think he should have been included bearing in mind the massive part he has played in our history.

He was asked, but like you said, all his equipment went several weeks ago.

[noaksey]

1 hour ago, Deano said:

I read brown envelopes all the time on cov’s Facebook group as well. It’s frustrating as it just makes our job harder.

Incredible that people still use this phrase without a shred of evidence to back it up in these litigious times 

[JoeW436]

1 hour ago, iainb said:

It's a pretty p155 poor line up for a "farewell" to a track meeting!

I shall toddle along because I haven't seen any live Speedway in ages... but it sums everything up quite nicely, Panthers going out with a whimper

I’m torn whether to go or not, that interview he gave in the interval still angers me.

[IainB]

2 hours ago, JoeW436 said:

I’m torn whether to go or not, that interview he gave in the interval still angers me.

I know what you mean... followed by the statement on the website about he doesn't care whether you come or not. But I'm not going to cut my nose off to spite my face. I'm just going to treat it for what it is, an end of season fixture filler

[Sir Sidney]

I'm very happy to see that Sport England has now objected to the planning application and has included a section on the proposed loss of the speedway track within it's objection. It references the face that the application does not deal with the loss in accordance with LP30 and LP36 and the relevance of para 99 of the NPPF

Sports England also references comments from the RFU, Football Foundation and ECB, as well as commenting on the proposed golf facility - broadly suggesting that more consultation is required with those bodies and that the need be demonstrated 

Another positive step I believe. 

The Council cannot just ignore all these objections, including where they come from sports governing bodies - even if AEPG thinks it can run roughshod over them 

01322034.pdf (peterborough.gov.uk)

Edited October 7, 2023 by Sir Sidney

[Pitch]

I have just arrived at the showground at 5.40pm, car park is really full and there is long queues into the car park and into the season ticket car parking. Long queues on foot at the pay booths also.

[RogerM22]

8 hours ago, JoeW436 said:

No Hans Andersen at todays meeting?

I'm surprised he was even asked. Looking at social media you'd think the Panthers have existed for about 10 years. Plenty photos of Dads Army or the PL 4s. What about 98/99, Crump, Sullivan, 2006, etc?

[IainB]

This really is one of the tamest speedway meetings I've ever been to... the large crowd really deserved better!

[foreverblue]

4 minutes ago, iainb said:

This really is one of the tamest speedway meetings I've ever been to... the large crowd really deserved better!

What is wrong with Harris tonight?

[IainB]

12 minutes ago, foreverblue said:

What is wrong with Harris tonight?

Just not on it, the track is a shadow of the track it used to be, the only passing line is down the inside, that's not Bomber's line

Edited October 7, 2023 by iainb

[screm]

And so the curtain comes down.

[foreverblue]

21 minutes ago, iainb said:

Just not on it, the track is a shadow of the track it used to be, the only passing line is down the inside, that's not Bomber's line

Oh I see that was a shame for the farewell meeting.