THOROGOOD GARAGE: IT'S DECISION TIME
South Wales Evening Post - 10 July 2006
It is D-day for Swansea's most infamous garage extension. A date has been picked for the planning visit to the home improvement which cost Tim Thorogood his £120,000-a-year job.
Members of the council's planning committee will visit the Rhossili home of the former chief executive tomorrow to decide the fate of the garage.
Mr Thorogood quit as Swansea Council's chief executive after details of the garage conversion were released.
Although the original plans for a detached garage at his luxury Broad Park home were approved, an official complaint was made over a fitted kitchen added without permission.
It also emerged Mr Thorogood's wife, Alison, had sought advice about advertising a holiday home on the council's tourism website.
Mr Thorogood was suspended in December last year and an inquiry was launched. He quit his post on January 13, walking away with a £60,000 deal. Planning officials controversially recommended to councillors that they accept his application for retrospective permission for the work, but members of the committee voted to hold a site visit instead.
If, after seeing the development, they decide to refuse the application, the unauthorised improvements, including a fitted kitchen, will have to be ripped out.
Their decision to take a trip to Rhossili has been criticised by Mynyddbach councillor Ray Welsby.
Councillor Welsby accused the committee of "wasting council taxpayers money."
He claimed the planning committee was "making a mockery of the people of Swansea" and he called for the converted garage to be knocked down.
He said: "I think if he gets the application passed then people at the top of the council should go.
"The garage should be taken down."
Members of the committee cannot comment on individual cases, but deputy council leader Gerald Clement defended their work and accused the councillor of trying to "slur" colleagues.
He said: "I have got every confidence that the people who are sitting and voting on planning will vote one way or another, quite dispassionately, on the planning merits."
For Ray Welsby to suggest otherwise, is, quite frankly, a nonsense and it is a slur on the integrity of the people of all parties."
It is D-day for Swansea's most infamous garage extension. A date has been picked for the planning visit to the home improvement which cost Tim Thorogood his £120,000-a-year job.
Members of the council's planning committee will visit the Rhossili home of the former chief executive tomorrow to decide the fate of the garage.
Mr Thorogood quit as Swansea Council's chief executive after details of the garage conversion were released.
Although the original plans for a detached garage at his luxury Broad Park home were approved, an official complaint was made over a fitted kitchen added without permission.
It also emerged Mr Thorogood's wife, Alison, had sought advice about advertising a holiday home on the council's tourism website.
Mr Thorogood was suspended in December last year and an inquiry was launched. He quit his post on January 13, walking away with a £60,000 deal. Planning officials controversially recommended to councillors that they accept his application for retrospective permission for the work, but members of the committee voted to hold a site visit instead.
If, after seeing the development, they decide to refuse the application, the unauthorised improvements, including a fitted kitchen, will have to be ripped out.
Their decision to take a trip to Rhossili has been criticised by Mynyddbach councillor Ray Welsby.
Councillor Welsby accused the committee of "wasting council taxpayers money."
He claimed the planning committee was "making a mockery of the people of Swansea" and he called for the converted garage to be knocked down.
He said: "I think if he gets the application passed then people at the top of the council should go.
"The garage should be taken down."
Members of the committee cannot comment on individual cases, but deputy council leader Gerald Clement defended their work and accused the councillor of trying to "slur" colleagues.
He said: "I have got every confidence that the people who are sitting and voting on planning will vote one way or another, quite dispassionately, on the planning merits."
For Ray Welsby to suggest otherwise, is, quite frankly, a nonsense and it is a slur on the integrity of the people of all parties."
posted by Commentator at 11:00 AM
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