Helen Martin: Why did they reject this racing certainty?

Published on Wednesday 23 February 2011 11:13

COUNCIL planning processes and judgements are usually as mentally stimulating as a Mogadon. But the consequences of getting it wrong can be immense.

Last week East Lothian Council was faced with a change of land use request. It's a convoluted story, but to simplify, they had a choice to make.

By re-zoning business park land in Wallyford as suitable for much-needed housing, they would, at no cost to themselves or local people, wind up with 94 new homes (a quarter of which would be affordable housing) plus the construction jobs that went with the project; a multi-million-pound state-of-the-art greyhound-racing stadium that would also have been used for entertainment, community and leisure events - plus the construction jobs that went with it; negotiated road and parking infrastructure to support it; 183 permanent jobs in the stadium; and, according to objective professional assessment, 10 million of revenue coming into the area every year.

With the addition of one or two, three or four-star hotels, and Musselburgh race course close by, they would also have created a luxury tourist destination for those who like a classy punt . . . not quite on a par with creating Las Vegas from the desert, but near enough.

By not re-zoning the business park land (which is in the wrong location for a business park anyway and thus, even in the boom times, generated no interest from purchasers) they and the people of Wallyford would wind up with . . . some brown fields.

You have probably figured out by now that in order for this story to have a punch line, the local yokel councillors cleared the straw from their ears to listen to the options and then, with the remarkable vision and recession-busting business acumen for which local councillors are famed, eight voted for the development - and 12 plumped for the brown fields.

There are several theories and rumours going round as to how the 12 - even the most cerebrally-challenged - could have voted this way.

It could be that they simply wanted to back up their pen-pushing officials by sticking rigidly to the prescribed local plan for the area, at a time when government is pressing local authorities to look again at such plans where they thwart the greater good. Possible, but surely unlikely as it is not in the interests of local people crying out for jobs and housing.

If officials were really to be trusted to make such decisions, there would be no need for councillors.

Maybe they didn't trust the intentions of the developer, Dirleton-based accountant Howard Wallace. I know the man. This project is his heartfelt dream and he's putting everything into it - 4.9m of his own shiny pennies on the stadium project so far. And he's desperate to spend another 10m . . . finance that would have come from the re-zoning of his land for housing.

It's rumoured that there may have been pressure from Musselburgh race course which, despite the potential of mutual benefit, might not want the competition. But if so, no-one will ever admit it because some East Lothian councillors are also directors of the course - so that would be a clear and undemocratic conflict of interest, wouldn't it?

Local resistance? Apparently not. Wallyford Community Council was positively in favour of the development. It's not a lush, affluent area of outstanding natural beauty. It has useless brown fields aplenty but it needs money, jobs and affordable housing to fill in the gap sites between surrounding trunk roads and existing housing estates.

Pressure from the anti-greyhound-racing lobby? Not in Wallyford and not from anyone who knows anything about greyhound racing, including the Scottish SPCA, which is on record as saying licensed, registered tracks, such as the one planned, actually improve greyhound welfare.

Finally there is the strange part played by planning convener Barry Turner. For some reason best known to himself, he breached the code imposed on all councillors by lobbying others in the administration prior to the decision, in an attempt (successful as it turned out) to sway some of them into voting against the re-zoning. When a fellow councillor exposed him he was forced to leave the meeting, there are now calls for his resignation and he could be reported to the Standards Commission. But too late. His dirty work (described as "shameful" in East Lothian's local press) was done.

So, if there is no truth in any of the conspiracy theories above, it remains a mystery. How could it happen?

These are hard times. Opportunities have to be seized, jobs are in short supply and dwindling, affordable housing is needed and councils don't have budgets to provide it, the construction industry is in crisis, Wallyford needs a future and gift-horses don't come galloping along that often.

The only clear conclusion is that with council decisions like that, who needs a recession to ruin a local economy?