A WHILE AGO it was confirmed that Rovers’ application to redevelop the Blackthorn End won’t be heard by Bristol City Council’s planning committee until late April. As a result of this, work on the project – assuming it is granted planning permission – won’t be able to begin in the close season as was originally hoped. Instead, we are likely to have to wait until early 2006.

With that announcement came all the usual outpourings. You probably know them already. That’s why they’re called BRISTOL CITY Council. They only want one team in Bristol. They’re not interested in us. They're biased towards that lot over the river. They’re not interested in sport in this city. There’s even been talk of protests about the treatment we’ve received.

But are we really being given an unduly hard time by the Council? I’m not convinced.

In fact, I think on this particular issue they’re copping some undeserved flak and are proving quite an easy scapegoat for the fact that work on the redevelopment won’t take place until next year.

The facts are these. The planning application for the North Stand redevelopment went in on November 19th of last year. Given the scale of the project it was classified as a major development. The targeted timescale for a major application to be determined is 13 weeks. This is a nationally set target and is applicable to all Councils up and down the country.

As stated in an earlier article on this website, all major applications need to be determined by the relevant planning committee (in this case the Development Control North Committee), which meets monthly. Therefore, applying the thirteen-week rule, the first available meeting for this application to go before the planning committee was 23 February 2005.

You have to think that there was always a danger that we’d get our fingers burnt on this by leaving the submission of the application until what looks like the latest possible date to be able to start work in the close season. A positive decision on February 23rd would have given us just ten weeks to get everything in place, a pretty tall order given the scale of the project. And even if planning permission had been granted at the next scheduled meeting of the Development Control (North) Committee, on March 24th, that would have given us just six weeks until the end of the season. I’m no expert on the construction projects, but that seems unfeasible for a £2.5m project.

But more importantly, was it really realistic of us to expect that the application process would be resolved by the end of February? Yes the club did – very wisely - work with the Council beforehand to ensure that the application process was as smooth as possible, no doubt trying to iron out any common issues that typically arise during these types of applications. But the facts suggest that it was always going to be a pipedream.

All public authorities have a statutory obligation to collect and publish data on their performance each year, the results of which are published in an annual Performance Plan. Bristol City Council’s latest one – released in June 2004 - can be found here while the relevant sub-document for Environment, Transport and Leisure is here. Within this, on page 73 of the full document or page 7 of the sub-document, you’ll see that indicator 109a covers the proportion of major planning applications that are decided within the targeted timescale of 13 weeks. It shows that in 2002/03 only 42% of such applications were approved on time, with this figure rising to 54% in 2003/04. This wasn’t down to the Council being useless, it’s par for the course with major planning applications. The table in the performance plan shows that the 42% figure for 2002/03 was pretty much in line with other major (“core”) cities, which on average processed just 43.8% of major applications within the 13-week timescale.

The simple fact of the matter is that only around half of major applications go through within thirteen weeks , and given the circumstances Rovers’ was never likely to be one of them.

For starters, the thirteen weeks from November 19th included the small matter of the Christmas holidays.

Then of course there’s the consultation phase to be negotiated, the single most important factor in determining the length of an application process. As stated in an earlier article on this site, the Council has a statutory duty to consult on applications and get the views of all interested parties. While the club undoubtedly did the right thing in working with the Council beforehand to ensure that the application process was as smooth as possible, it’s nigh on impossible for anyone to predict what is going to come out of the consultation phase of the planning application process.

That isn’t something that is solely consigned to Rovers’ applications, it’s not something that is just down to Bristol City Council. It’s something that happens in all major planning applications across the country. It’s also something that was always going to hit our application hard given the RAGE factor. We know from past experience the lengths they will go to in order to disrupt stadium expansion.

A very sensitive project that was always likely to generate lots of feedback and public holidays. These are the things that have meant Rovers have not been able to get their application approved within the bare minimum period of time. It’s not because the Council all support the City or don’t want us to do anything.

Moreover, these factors were always likely to come into play. This was pretty much spelt out to us soon after it became public knowledge that the application wouldn’t be heard before the end of April. When asked on his section of the official forum when our stand was going to be given the go-ahead, Geoff Dunford replied: “Ask Bristol City Planners! They have now deferred our application until April!”

So we took his advice and contacted the Bristol City Council Planning Department. We got this reply from the Principal Planning Officer for the North Area Development Control Team.

“Put quite simply, the application is not yet ready and in a position to be put forward to the planning committee. There are still various issues to be resolved regarding the architecture and design of the proposed stand, and also in relation to the transportation side of the application. Once negotiations have been concluded on these outstanding matters, then it will be possible to take the application forward to the planning committee, the next available meeting being 27 April 2005. A full reconsultation will be undertaken of any revised designs and details once these have been submitted”.

In view of all of the above, it seems harsh in the extreme to start blaming the Council for our being unable to start the redevelopment during the close season. It’s been implied by at least two of our Directors that they’ve been moving the goalposts, but the simple fact is that you don’t even know where the goalposts are going to go until the feedback from the consultation phase starts filtering through. The Council have to do their job and if it is heard at the end of April then, considering all of the information they’ve probably had to deal with in the consultation phase, I reckon they’ve actually done pretty well to turn it around even within that time.

It’s also, is it not, a bit hypocritical to go on about them taking longer than expected when we were so laboured in putting the proposal forward in the first place. Take the following quotes (and we could have included many more):

"We are submitting plans for improving the Memorial Stadium to achieve a capacity of 17,000 seats and funding for the first phase of £3 million for 5,500 seats is in place. We intend to start construction just before the next close season"

Geoff Dunford, Evening Post, 10th June 2004

"A planning application will be submitted next month and we expect to start our consultation process with local residents early in October”

Geoff Dunford, September 23rd 2004

As far as I’m concerned, the Council have done their job effectively so far. Can Rovers say the same about themselves?

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