POLITICIANS AND POST BLAMED FOR JOB QUIT DECISION
19 May 2006
Swansea Council's former top boss has blamed politicians and the Evening Post for his sudden departure from his £120,000-a-year job. Tim Thorogood quit his role as chief executive in January after councillors decided he did have a case to answer in a planning row at his Rhossili home.
Mr Thorogood has now taken a £30,000 pay cut to join the Local Government Information Unit as its chief executive.
In an interview for a local government magazine, Mr Thorogood explains for the first time his reasons for leaving Swansea.
In the interview he claims that he was picked on because of his position and said the planning breaches on his garage amounted to nothing more than a few extra panes of glass.
He said: "It's true that in the context of a couple of windows, it didn't [have planning permission]. For any other person it wouldn't have created an issue."
Mr Thorogood and his wife Alison, a senior planning officer with Neath Port Talbot Council, applied for permission to upgrade their garage with a workshop in September 2004.
Following the start of work, Mr Thorogood asked about changing the plans and was told he had to submit a revised application.
However, a complaint was made that the work being carried out was going far beyond what had been agreed, so the council's own planning department launched an investigation in December 2005.
As well as discovering the extra windows, it was also found that a kitchen had been built in the garage. Throughout the process, Mrs Thorogood had been looking into the possibility of renting out the garage as a holiday home and had even inquired about advertising on the council's tourism website.
In the article for Local Government Chronicle magazine, Mr Thorogood said he decided to leave his job because he would not have been able to carry on with his programme of change for the city, which included the controversial eGovernment project, Service@Swansea.
Mr Thorogood said: "The political circumstances of the council, and inevitably the way in which politicians and the local media behaved in that situation, led one to think that, given the problem in planning, it wasn't practical for me to lead a highly visible change programme in that council."
Swansea Council's former top boss has blamed politicians and the Evening Post for his sudden departure from his £120,000-a-year job. Tim Thorogood quit his role as chief executive in January after councillors decided he did have a case to answer in a planning row at his Rhossili home.
Mr Thorogood has now taken a £30,000 pay cut to join the Local Government Information Unit as its chief executive.
In an interview for a local government magazine, Mr Thorogood explains for the first time his reasons for leaving Swansea.
In the interview he claims that he was picked on because of his position and said the planning breaches on his garage amounted to nothing more than a few extra panes of glass.
He said: "It's true that in the context of a couple of windows, it didn't [have planning permission]. For any other person it wouldn't have created an issue."
Mr Thorogood and his wife Alison, a senior planning officer with Neath Port Talbot Council, applied for permission to upgrade their garage with a workshop in September 2004.
Following the start of work, Mr Thorogood asked about changing the plans and was told he had to submit a revised application.
However, a complaint was made that the work being carried out was going far beyond what had been agreed, so the council's own planning department launched an investigation in December 2005.
As well as discovering the extra windows, it was also found that a kitchen had been built in the garage. Throughout the process, Mrs Thorogood had been looking into the possibility of renting out the garage as a holiday home and had even inquired about advertising on the council's tourism website.
In the article for Local Government Chronicle magazine, Mr Thorogood said he decided to leave his job because he would not have been able to carry on with his programme of change for the city, which included the controversial eGovernment project, Service@Swansea.
Mr Thorogood said: "The political circumstances of the council, and inevitably the way in which politicians and the local media behaved in that situation, led one to think that, given the problem in planning, it wasn't practical for me to lead a highly visible change programme in that council."
posted by Commentator at 11:06 AM
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