Dismissing Public Concerns Over Access to Consultation is Unacceptable Say North Staffs Greens. By Adam Colclough

📷 Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council | Castle House

North Staffs Green Party has expressed disappointment over the attitude shown by Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council following public concerns raised in relation to one of its public consultations.

Along with other groups campaigning to protect green spaces in Newcastle Borough they submitted a freedom of information request (FOI) in January asking how many people had complained about difficulties accessing the consultation.

A similar request was also made to Stoke-on-Trent City Council. In a reply they said they had held 55 consultations covering various areas of the council’s operations between 2020 and 2022. These generated a single complaint which was not related to access problems.

Other issues relating to poor communication on the part of the council have come to light including Save Newcastle's Green Sites (SNGS) having to send twenty-five emails to set up an online petition on their website.

A spokesperson said, “the response given by the council was dismissive to the point of being insulting and is all too sadly representative of their attitude to this consultation and engaging with the public in general”.

Concerns were raised earlier this year by campaign group SNGS in relation to a council consultation on its Strategic Options document. This sets out plans to develop green spaces in the borough, many of which are opposed by residents.

SNGS contacted the council to raise concerns that the consultation was not being properly advertised, another local group campaigning to protect green spaces, Save Our Green Spaces, highlighted the lack of an option to send a paper response. This, they said, put people who were disabled or did not have access to a computer at a disadvantage.

North Staffs Green Party (NSGP) also wrote to the borough council raising concerns about the consultation, saying that as currently designed it fell short of the requirements set out in the Nolan principles for local government in the areas of objectivity, openness, and accountability.

Responding to the concerns expressed by SNGS and other groups the council published information about the consultation and how people could participate either online or by attending community events in the local press.

However, SNGS members who attended these public events reported that council officials did not fully engage with views expressed by members of the public that were in opposition to the plans set out in the Strategic Options document.

In response to the issues raised by the Green Party council leader Simon Tagg said in an email that the NSGP should ‘stop being political’. He has, to date, made no further response.

Replying to SNGS the borough council responded by email saying, that while they do not keep a ‘running tally’ of the number of complaints received about a particular consultation. However, they do ‘consider very carefully each and every complaint we receive and respond of adjust our approach where required’.

The council were able to identify eight ‘discreet complaints’ about the consultation process about the consultation process in the past year, responses have been made but, so far no further action has been taken.

In relation to the problems setting up the petition the council say they received no complaints but had been made aware by the organizer that some people were having problems logging on to the system due to ‘technical difficulties’.

This, they said, after investigation proved to be due to people using the wrong log-in details and that in agreement with the petition organizer they had extended the time for which it ran to allow anyone who missed out to try and submit their response again.

The spokesperson for North Staffs Green Party said, “the borough council have taken a tick box approach to responding to this issue that is sadly not unfamiliar”, adding that “we and the other groups will continue speaking up for all the people who have had their voice silenced on what is a very important issue”.