Verity has been doing a bit research following the viewing of John Brace’s coverage of last week’s Planning Committee meeting. The poor saps who turned up expecting a debate about proposals about Saughall Massie fire station were blindsided by bureaucracy and politely asked to leave by committee chair Cllr Anita Leech (and if ever there was an archetypal Wirral councillor name Anita has got it!)
Forgive us for ignoring (for now) the plans to build a fire station on the green belt. We’re more interested in plans to turn Birkenhead ‘s Charing Cross into even more of a vagrant destination than it already is.
The architects behind the latest plan to degrade Birkenhead town centre even further (if that were possible) is SDA Architecture on behalf of their client Dr Ahmed. SDA Architecture have an ignoble history of making such applications. This is even more surprising when you consider that one of their former directors is Cllr Paul ‘ Danceaway’ Doughty.
However Cllr Doughty appears to have to have passed the baton on his son as a conduit for landlords who want to turn properties into houses of multiple occupation and maximum profit . These are the current directors of SDA Architecture ( Doughty Jnr is the one on the left ).
It comes to something when even Birkenhead MP Frank Field rocks up to object about plans to turn a building on Charing Cross into a ‘dosshouse’. But then Frankenfield and his long -standing acolyte Cllr Jean Stapleton were only gegging in on Birkenhead & Tranmere councillor Pat Cleary’s call in on this particular planning application. It is frightening to think that if he hadn’t council officers under their delegated powers would have approved a 12 bedded hellhole ( but then they don’t have to live there – so why should they care?)
Happier days when Jean and Frank didn’t have to ask awkward questions about yet another lamentable Labour councillor who they’ve repeatedly turned a blind eye to.
Criticism was made during the Planning Committee meeting of a previous SDA Architecture application on behalf of Dr Ahmed to convert a former police station on Laird Street
12 bedsits in this space? – would Cllr Doughty live in one of them? Just sayin’
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/laird-street-police-station-birkenhead-12113869
Frankenfield’s intervention in his lightweight seersucker (not a euphemism) is even more surprising when you consider that Cllr Paul Doughty tried to ingratiate himself with the local political powerbroker by nominating him for an award from the Mormons for upholding ‘family values’ . Once again, you really couldn’t make this shit up!
However what we’d really like to know is exactly what is Cllr Paul ‘Danceaway’ Doughty’s relationship with notorious flytipping facilitator Arthur Morgan?
Surely it can’t be the same Arthur Morgan who has business interests with Pensions Committee chair Cllr Doughty ?
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09898216/officers
We think we should be told!
Wirralleaks 
Can you believe this? Do they not know that Charing Cross is a national joke after featuring on Radio 4 with Mark Steel drinking at the Recession Bar, now boarded up, and the Moodz bar which should be. His shows illustrate how town centres have become decaying, boarded up cesspits populated by the homeless, aimless and destitute, while the rest of us shop and eat outside of town. Charing Cross is a total disgrace, a shameful blot on Birkenheads planners souls. How can it get like this? Kebab shops, drinking dens, Polish delis, boarded up pubs, all inhabited by moronic drunk thugs and wandering junkies looking for their next fix. My Nan and Grandad used to get us all dressed up to go ‘to town’ shopping, starting at Charing Cross, the posh part of Birkenhead! Can we invite Frank up for a burger and a fight with the voters. A dosshouse will put the cap on it I suppose, the crowning glory of a once proud town destroyed by the very people entrusted with its future. Charing Cross will finally be a No Go Area, it may be already.
Thanks for including my video footage of Wirral Council’s Planning Committee.
If memory serves correct, Cllr Jean Stapleton (who with relevance to the Saughall Massie greenbelt fire station application is also on the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority) was also on the Planning Committee that turned down the application at Laird Street police station.
Interestingly part of the rationale for closing Laird Street police station (as it’s in my immediate neighbourhood) was there was to be a new 24 hour a day Area Command Centre near Birkenhead North station not too far away. That didn’t however happen.
The since abolished Merseyside Police Authority (abolished in I think around 2012 in the switch to Police and Crime Commissioners) managed to go so far as obtaining planning permission for the new Area Command Centre, have roads in the area blocked or officially closed, spend lots of public money on it, but then the whole matter got knocked on the head by the auditors as too much of a risk!
Always a pleasure and most revealing.
What also puzzled me is Cllr Jean Stapleton, when on both the Fire Authority and the Planning Committee, deciding when on the Fire Authority to make a planning application on the 26th January 2017 (that would be decided by Wirral Council’s Planning Committee) without declaring it as an interest!
Cllr Lesley Rennie, also a Deputy on Wirral Council’s Planning Committee also failed to declare an interest too!
Yet, both councillors managed to declare an interest about something else on the agenda?
Did it just slip their mind at the right point that a planning application to Wirral Council, to be decided by Wirral Council’s Planning Committee, on which they are both councillors may be an interest that they both needed to declare?
Or am I just expecting too high standards from our local councillors and making scurrilous accusations and nitpicking?
We think you just want things done properly.
G’day Leaksly
I’m not a fan of Clowncillor Crispy Creme Doughnut either.
Ooroo
James
Short and sweet and fat just like the scum bag low life member of the Fudge It and Risk It Mis-Management Committee.
Luv ya L XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
G’day Leaks
Just look what happens when there is no one held accountable for anything?
Ooroo
James
I can’t believe that not one clowncillor has stood down……
All for £8,000.00 to sit through bullshit meetings and not have any say.
SWALK Leaky XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Just look at that revolting jones family and their swag of filthy lucre….yuk.
Time for the BOOMERANG….
(Don’t worry Sir Git, I am sure it will pop up somewhere, where you will see it in your new job)
“We have been waiting almost six years for them to own up and say it was all wrong, they’ve lied, cheated, hidden stuff, obfuscated and told bare faced lies”
The Aussie on the Wirral Biz/Council scandal.
Arthur Morgan has birthday of Feb 1958 at companies house as Co director of Mr Doughty o and the same date in the newspaper article…you will have observed Milord
Pingback: Wirral Leaks Weekly Dispatch #16 | Wirralleaks