Dear Mr Smith

Thank you for taking the trouble to express your interest in this matter when I phoned earlier today. I suppose I am presenting you with a bit of a conflict of interest to deal with but that is all part of this issue.

Evidence suggests that an investigator from the Scottish Public service Ombudsman's office is preparing to use your Royal Mail as a scape goat for maladministration that was exercised by our Highland Council planning department.

Highland Council alleges that on 20th Nov 06 and 1st Dec 06 their planning department sent out Statutory planning application Notices to Inverness South Community Council.

The community council wrote to Highland Council on 8th and again on 18th Dec 06 complaining that they had never received the Statutory Consultation Notices.

Because Highland Council failed to acknowledge the two letters of complaint the community, and I, allege that we were denied our statutory consultation time and were unable to prepare for a planning hearing.

This whole issue has had a high profile in our local newspapers and for many months now the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman's office has been investigating what our community regards is maladministration that has been exercised by the council planning department.

The Notices would have attracted widespread objection to the planning proposal so it is understood by the general public that while there is a record of the notices being printed by the planning office there is no record of them ever being posted, suggesting that they were probably binned to save the planners extra work load dealing with objectors.

The Ombudsman, without any proof at all, now seems to be quite willing to suggest to our Scottish Parliament in his report that the Statutory Notices were lost by our Royal Mail delivery system.

The planning office is only yards away from the Inverness General Post Office, where the planners post their mail, which in turn is only yards away from the Royal Mail sorting office.

As the crow flies, the letter box for the recipient was only three miles away, so there is a very simple and short audit trail.

Into the bargain, the actual post man for the community is held in very high esteem by the whole community, so it seems very unfair that the Ombudsman should try and protect the Highland Council planning department at the personal expense of the integrity of the post man and our Royal Mail.

At the moment, Audit Scotland and Northern constabulary have been invited to investigate the whole blighted matter because as the newspaper report says, half a million pounds of profit was taken out of public funds for buying the land for this proposed development, something that may not have happened had Royal Mail not "lost" the two notices.

The Ombudsman is not going to contact Royal Mail under the circumstances of this case, but rest assured that many members of our community will not let this situation rest until the Ombudsman has cleared the integrity of the post man and Royal Mail. In the first instance we would suggest that you ask the SPSO investigator to remove the aspersion that he has cast on the post man and Royal Mail.

If this is not within your scope then there would be little alternative than to gather public support and mount a Petition with all its attendant publicity. Despite the recent bad press that your business has attracted I am confident that if or when it may come to deciding who acted with honesty and integrity I think that you have a winner in your postie.

Evidence suggests that Susan Torrance Chief Executive of Highland Housing Alliance conspired with Highland Council Planning team leader Nicola Drummond and Development Director Mike Greaves and principal planner Colin MacKenzie to corrupt the statutory planning process for the Balvonie Housing Fair at Inverness by frustrating community consultation in the application.

Before this resume of events is sent with a complaint to Audit Scotland participants are invited to comment, correct or clarify if possible.

As case officer for the planning application Nicola Drummond had a statutory duty to engage her planning department in consultation with the Inverness South Community Council in whose area the fair was to be held.

The site chosen by the Highland Housing alliance for building the fair on was an agricultural field in a protected green wedge. The area had been rejected for housing development by the reporter when it had been considered for house building during the creation of the present Local Plan.

The case officer was well aware of the fact that the ground had recently come into the ownership of Mr David Sutherland and his Tulloch Homes building company and that Susan Torrance who had been charged with a duty to find a development site for the fair was an associate of David Sutherland having been a former director of Tulloch Homes Express.

Four principal people appear to have had a mission to turn a protected green field into a building site for David Sutherland, with as little objection from the public as possible.

Nicola Drummond alleges that her department sent out a Consultation Letter regarding the Fair application to Inverness South Community Council dated 20th Nov 2006.

The Community Council deny ever receiving it.

The Community Council wrote to Nicola Drummond on 8th Dec saying that they were aware of the proposed development but had received no information from the planning department.

Nicola Drummond ignored the cc letter.

The Community Council wrote a second letter to Nicola Drummond on 18th Dec saying that they had still not received information on the application from the planning department. Nicola Drummond ignored the second cc letter.

In May 07 Bogbain inspected Nicola's working file on the Balvoniegate plan and discovered that she had on 21st Nov 06 emailed Colin MacKenzie Highland Council's principal planner at HQ saying: Obviously it is contrary to plan but also we are obviously going to approve it given the background.

The background of course was the fact that the land had been purchased by David Sutherland with the express intention of selling it to Susan Torrance once the land had been laundered through Nicola's planning department.

Mike Greaves, Highland Council Director of Development emailed Susan Torrance around that time saying, "Nicola Drummond thinks it is a good idea to meet them (community council) but after the expiry of the 21 day advert period when we can be clear on the extent and content of all representations made."

Here is clear evidence that Nicola Drummond was deliberately frustrating the community engagement process and keeping valuable information from the Inverness South Community Council

Nicola Drummond was preparing for objections from the community, as evidenced and recorded in her email to Mike Greaves 24th Nov 06 she wrote. I anticipate objections from both the local community councils and Janet has already questioned how we can justify the loss of green wedge. On this basis I wondered if a community meeting to expand on the details and principles involved had been considered. The plan really gives the barest of information and for many people coming into see the plans there is no background as to what the HHF is about?

Details of the conspiracy were passed to Tulloch Watch and eventually made headline Highland news.

Nicola never did venture out to meet the community council but left that task to Susan Torrance, to deliver a slide show on 29th Jan 2007 to the cc on the very evening just before the planning hearing on Jan 30th 2007.

After her address it was found that there was nobody available from the cc to represent the cc objections in the planning chamber.

This fact impacted on the outcome of the hearing when the cc was ridiculed by councillors for not having a representative in attendance, and the application was approved.

Susan, with her legal background would have been very well aware of the fact that her address should have been delivered at least 14 days before the hearing to conform to statutory rules for community consultation.

Nicola explained to the planning committee that while the date on her report was 12th Jan 2007 she had in fact finalised it to the planning director on 19th Jan 2007.

But that presentation took place even before Susan met with the community council, on 29th Jan 2007, so which ever way we look at the matter the evidence clearly shows Susan and Nicola doing their best to keep the community in the dark for as long as possible and flouting community consultation statutory regulations.

Nicola Drummond should have prepared her report for the planning committee 14 days after the Community Council was addressed by Susan Torrance.

The minute of the planning hearing records blatant misrepresentations from Nicola Drummond when she said. "Information had first been sent to Inverness South Community Council on 20th Nov 06". We all know now that the information was never received and under the circumstances surrounding the issue evidence suggests it was never posted. Then she went on to say, "Additional details had been sent to the Community Council on 12th Dec06" We now know that this was not the case.

More evidence that Highland Council officials were involved in this conspiracy to frustrate community engagement is contained in a letter from Mike Greaves to Maureen Smith Secretary ISCC when he wrote to Maureen on 9th Jan 2007 saying it was anticipated that the application would come before the Area Planning Committee on 30th Jan 2007 but he was aware that Susan Torrance might address ISCC on 29th Jan 07.

Mike Greaves would have been very well aware of the fact that in making such a suggestion he was heavily involved in the corruption of the statutory community consultation process in offering such a date to Maureen with the statutory 14 day consultation period missing.

John Rennilson, the Highland Council Director of Planning at the time of the application, was made aware of the corruption of the community consultation process by several letters and emails from Bogbain.

Mr Rennilson was well aware of the fact Nicola had given her report recommending approval to him on 19th Jan 07 but in an email to Bogbain Mr Rennelson recorded: There is no question that the timescale for the preparation of this report was entirely in order and I reject entirely your suggestions to the contrary.

Nicola Drummond then went on to make a serious misrepresentation in a letter to a Mr Kerr at the Scottish Executive when in Feb 07 she wrote to him saying: Neither Westhill Community Council nor the Scottish Executive Trunk Roads have provided responses on the planning application. Westhill cc had provided a response and has made several representations to Highland Council regarding her misrepresentation but as yet no explanation has been forthcoming and another complaint is being prepared for the SPSO.

Whenever planners have met with the community throughout 2007 they have insisted that they would not discuss the Balvonie planning consultation issue.

Around September of 2007 it became evident to Tulloch Watch that Tulloch were about to breech a 600 unit capping on house building at Milton of Leys. This is a condition that was imposed on a larger 900 unit development until Tulloch bought some farm land and constructed a new link road between Milton of Leys and Inshes.

After much prevaricating and denials from Mr Rennilson it was established that the 589th house would be completed by Christmas 07. It was becoming evident that the Highland Housing Fair could not go ahead until the link road was opened.

However, when challenged on the issue the planners suggested that the homes could indeed be built in the absence of the road just so long as they were not occupied, which seemed to be a strange interpretation of planning regulations.

In a letter from Mike Greaves in 2007, to Eleanor Scott, Green MSP, Mike advised that HHA would only be buying the Balvonie fields from Tulloch when the link road was completed. Seems now that Susan could not wait for the link road to be completed. Money was burning a hole in her HHA purse and she concluded a deal with her colleague David Sutherland where it was recently revealed that David reaped £500, 000 profit from HHA for turning the land over within nine months of purchase,

According to an enquiry by Bogbain to the Scottish Land Register. David Sutherland paid £830,000 for the land which had an agricultural value of less than £100,000. This evidence suggests that he must have been well assured by the planners around the time that he purchased the land that a planning permit to build would be a mere formality for him. His land sale to HHA, for 1.3 Million pounds, made headline news and the matter has now been referred to Audit Scotland by local MSP. Mr Dave Thompson after Tulloch Watch alerted the press and the issue made banner headlines.

Around Nov 07 Highland Council responded to Mary Scanlon MSP under her Freedom of Information Act enquiry and intimated that Highland Council had agreed to contribute to the funding of the Tulloch link road. This went unnoticed until Bogbain viewed the letter in Jan 08 and made similar enquiries under FoI to Highland Council for clarification. At first HC alleged that it was usual for developers to contribute to the cost of roads till Bogbain pointed out that the fair planning permit contained no developer contribution clause.

Then HC apologised to Bogbain and Mary Scanlon when their Freedom of Information officer realised that it was not HC that was making the offer to contribute to the Tulloch link road but that it was Susan Torrance with her HHA handbag again.

When challenged by Bogbain, Susan refused to correspond by email and alleged that she was not subject to the FoI Act legislation. Details of her truculent mood were released to Tulloch Watch and emailed to local newspapers with the result that her offer to pay for Tulloch.s road building made more headline news.

While commentators may suggest that there was something wrong with the ethics of the land deal this has to be balanced with the fact that Tulloch are in business to make profit by any legal means.

However there is much evidence to suggest that Tulloch would never have had the opportunity to sell the land at such an inflated price, to such a willing buyer, without the assistance of the planning team leader, Susan.s handbag, and help from Highland Council Headquarters.

They would not have the opportunity of someone like Susan sharing their road building costs, reckoned to be in excess of three million pounds, without the assistance of the planning team leader.

Tulloch Watch has now disclosed the fact that Mr Sutherland has not been able to buy the farmland that he needs for the Tulloch link road. This must mean that all building at Milton of Leys must be suspended forthwith and the fair cannot go ahead. The fair is not scheduled to go ahead anyway; because of plans to instigate a judicial review of the planning permit the moment SPSO finishes their investigation of the matter.

SPSO emailed Bogbain on 11th Jan 08 saying their investigator had concluded his report that day but it would be mid Feb before the draft was finalised for Bogbain and Tulloch Watch to view. Then it had to be placed before the Scottish Parliament, so it might be May before anything was ready for public view. Then news came to Bogbain that the process was being delayed for a further two weeks.

On 28-2-08 Bogbain emailed SPSO to be told there was now a further four weeks delay to be added to the process. By a great coincidence, within moments of the email leaving Bogbain a report was emailed to Bogbain from Scottish Public Service Ombudsman Watch indicating that there is national unrest with the SPSO service. The report was immediately relayed to SPSO with a demand that the Bogbain investigation be brought to a head within seven days. Meanwhile this resume of events has been compiled for the benefit of the press and Highland Councillors and will form the base for a complaint to Audit Scotland.

In tandem with David Sutherland's aspirations to see homes built on Balvonie has been his aspiration to build a new farmhouse steading etc, on the stunning landscape at Bogbain where such a development would have a degrading value on the A9 visitor.s viewpoint. Nicola Drummond is also the case officer for Mr Sutherland's farmhouse application and Bogbain has had to record a complaint to Mr Richard Hartland Interim Planning Director alleging that the irregularities exercised by Ms Drummond in the Balvonie planning process appear to be impacting on her performance in the Bogbain planning application. For instance, she has refused to acknowledge that the present Bogbain farmhouse is a Listed Building and that another; more modern farmhouse in a Bogbain field so close to the listed one would affect the "setting".

In Jan 2008 Bogbain tendered a resume outlining the failings of the case officer for the Bogbain plan to Westhill Community Council, and recently tendered a copy to Mr Hartland suggesting there was evidence to suggest that the case officer was exercising "poor community engagement"

Mr Hartland responded saying he found no such evidence but invited an expansion on the statement. Bogbain responded by return but twenty days later on 28-2-08 emailed Mr Hartland reminding him that the matter was not being addressed by Highland Council and also suggested that the fact that the case officer for Balvoniegate was the same case officer for Mr Sutherland's farmhouse application made her position untenable and such a fact probably explains why we are experiencing "poor community engagement". This was a most unacceptable situation and one that must be addressed without further delay.

Cc Newsdesks
Mary Scanlon MSP
Dave Thompson MSP
Highland Councillors.

I am writing to you to lodge my objections to the Masterplan for the Highland Housing Fair that was proposed for Balvonie of Inshes Inverness. Under normal circumstances I would tender my views to the Highland Council planning service but we are not dealing with a normal application in this instance.

I understand that for any development to be considered by our Highland Council it must, above anything else, appear to be sustainable.

The application must embrace certain moral standards, standards that are respected by the public in day to day life in Britain and also that no Councillor can sit on the planning committee with a conflict of interest on their shoulders.

During an exhibition of the revised Masterplan at Inshes Church Friday 11-1-08 members of the Highland Council administration team and members of the public were again made aware of the ongoing threat of legal action being taken in the near future against the Outline planning consent that Highland Council has granted for the Fair development.

Such action, if successful, would render the development unsustainable. But it also appears to be unsustainable from other perspectives as well.

Plans are all about lines on paper, sizes, scale and dimensions. If there is a curve in a line that we understand should be straight then we are looking at the corruption of a straight line. It would appear that the most important dimension on the Masterplan, the moral dimension, has suffered some grave form of corruption, rendering the Masterplan in its present form, invalid. Or to coin a popular phrase. Not fit for purpose.

There is no doubt that this Fair should have been a prestigious event for our Highland Council but a whole year of adverse media criticisms and exposure of corruption has left the integrity of the Fair organisers and our Highland Council in tatters.

Within the Highland Councillor's code of conduct there are instructions that Councillor's should not criticise council servants in public. So it follows that no councillor in the planning chamber has an opportunity to challenge the moral standards of the planning team. It must follow then, that if this Masterplan makes it to the Planning chamber then the planners are safe from moral challenge by Councillors, but more importantly will be the fact that many Councillors will feel duty bound or obliged to support the plan in order to save themselves and fellow Councillors from the shame and embarrassment that voting against the plan would have. This must mean that in essence, every councillor in the chamber will have had their integrity compromised by the corruption of the outline planning process.

But the matter does not rest there alone. Serious questions are now being asked regarding the ethics of the land transaction for the Fair in view of the fact that the developer at Milton of Leys has failed to deliver the new link road down to Inshes.

Records show that the landowners, who at this time last year were Tulloch Homes Ltd, were not to be paid for the land until the new road was in place. Through some strange means, within the corridors of Highland Council, those terms have been changed and the land deal has gone through without a new link road. Information recently released from Highland Council under FoI Act tells us that Highland Council are now going to put tax payer's money into developing the road that should have been funded by Tulloch alone.

I am now asking you to tell me, so that the public can understand. Who proposed this deal to offer funds to Tulloch to build the road, and who supported the proposal, and why?

You can probably be excused to some degree from feeling that the public funding of a private developer's road has little or nothing to do with your planning committee but, I would urge yourself and fellow councillors to consider how the public can perceive any support that you give this Masterplan as a serious conflict of interest as stated in 5.18 Councillor's Code of Conduct.

Quote. In the final analysis the conclusive test is whether, in the particular circumstances of the item of business, and knowing all the relevant facts, a member of the public acting reasonably would consider that you might be influenced by the interest in your role as a Councillor and that it would therefore be wrong to take part in any discussion or decision making. If you are not confident about the application of this objective yardstick, you should play no part in discussion and should leave the meeting room.

As a member of the public, I and many others in our community, consider that you have a conflict of interest because you are under extreme pressure to prop up the integrity of Highland Council against the much publicised allegations of corruption having been exercised in the planning process thus far. It seems only natural to conclude that such pressure removes ones ability to remain impartial.

Tullochs are presently on the verge of breeching a 600 house unit capping on the Milton of Leys development. A condition that was imposed on the development until the new link road is in place at Milton of Leys. When this fact was pointed out to the planners at the exhibition last night, Mr Polson the Area planning Manager openly supported the breech saying the developers could build the homes but not sell or inhabit them, until the road is opened. This seems to present a serious departure from established practice because in my own experience building warrants were never granted in the past and work on site could not be allowed to commence while there was any question over the provision of any service such as roads and water.

Indeed, the fact that this is standard practice can be found in Condition 35 of the of the Outline Planning document: (35) No part of the development for which planning permission is hereby approved shall be implemented unless it has been demonstrated that a potable water supply to serve the development can be provided and maintained all to the satisfaction of the planning authority in consultation with Scottish water.

Tulloch are demonstrating that they cannot supply the road. Evidence suggesting that Mr Polson is putting a false interpretation on the road condition, presumably in order to prop up Tulloch developments and the Fair development, is found in an email from Nicola Drummond to Mike Greaves 24th Nov 06 when she said. "Currently the total number of houses capable of being developed without completion of the second distributor road through the park to link Milton of Leys is 600."

Capable of being developed, not inhabited, as Mr Polson would now try and make us accept in order to corrupt the terms of the condition for the benefit of his developer friends.

The completion of the link road is now many years overdue and Tulloch still do not even own the land that is required for constructing this essential road. Throughout the Outline planning process the planners have adopted a presumption that Tulloch would deliver the road long before now, as evidenced in email dated 27th Nov 2006 from Mike Greaves to Nicola Drummond.

Quote. Neil Cameron (Tulloch) is confident that they would be able to progress the link down to Inshes during 2007.

"Was confident that they would be able to progress."
That was said in 2006 and here we are no further forward in 2008.
Since that date Neil, along with his section of Tulloch, has been sold off to ROK.
It does indeed seem as if the Emperor Tulloch is in the altogether at the moment and the Masterplan is in an unsustainable mode.

This objection would be incomplete without a brief account of the alleged planning irregularities that have thus far been observed, recorded and in some cases reported in the press.

Highland Planners now accept that they failed to deliver the initial Consultation Letter to Inverness South Community Council (ISCC)

Planners now accept that they failed to respond to a letter from ISCC dated 8th Dec 06 requesting their statutory package of information for the Fair development.

Planners now accept that they failed to respond to a second letter of request for statutory information from ISCC dated 18th Dec 06.

Planners now accept that the case officer signed her report to the planning committee, And also that the Director of planning accepted it, Ten days before the developer addressed the ISCC.

For evidence of who set the strategy for frustrating community consultation we find Mike Greaves, Head of Development and Strategy writing to the Secretary at ISCC suggesting that Susan Torrance, acting for the developers, should make a presentation to the community council on 29th Jan 07, just on the evening before the Hearing. Now Mike Greaves, maybe more than anyone else would know that the community Council was entitled by statute to have 14 days between any such presentation and the planning committee meeting.

The developer only addressed the community the very evening before the planning Hearing when it was then found that nobody was available to attend the Hearing the following morning. This represented a clear breech of statutory planning consultation rules and impacted on the outcome of the planning process in the planning chamber when the community was ridiculed for not presenting a representative.

Emails recovered from the file of the case officer now clearly show how the officer had her mind made up to recommend approval of the proposed development even before she started to put the matter out for community consultation.

On 21st Nov 06 she wrote to Colin MacKenzie at Highland Council HQ saying. "Obviously it is against the plan but we are obviously going to approve, given the background." Remember, the first letter that she drafted for community consultation (The one that she failed to deliver to the ISCC) was dated 20th Nov 06.

Another incriminating email from Colin MacKenzie to the case officer, 20th Feb 07 clearly shows how Headquarters were offering encouragement to the case officer to promote the development of the Balvonie site.

Recorded evidence now clearly suggests that thus far at least three Highland Council officials were colluding to frustrate or corrupt the due planning process and that their combined actions would reap a half million pound profit for Tulloch the field owner, as the fruit of their work.

So why has Tulloch not bought the land that is needed for building the road? We should probably ask ourselves why they should rush into spending funds on a road when there is no urgency, when Highland Council has no control over the timescale of the work.

Tulloch can cease building at Milton of Leys tomorrow, until such time as the Fair folk are desperate enough to pay for most or all the costs of the link road. But there is probably another very good reason as to why Tulloch have not bought the land for the road.

Perhaps the ransom strip is simply not for sale. Well what ransom strip owner would want to be associated in any manner or means with the corruption that have been exercised and exposed in this fiasco so far?

The land owner is from a very well respected local farming family and will feel that he has his integrity to protect. On the other hand he could be simply playing games and raising the stakes, at any rate he is laughing all the way to the bank while at the end of the day Highland Council lies languishing in this squalid bog of corruption.

More evidence of corruption is found in a letter dated 14-2-07 from the case officer to Mr Kerr at Scottish Executive Development Department Planning Division Edinburgh where it is alleged that: Quote Neither Westhill Community Council nor the Scottish Executive Trunk roads have provided responses on the planning application. I do not anticipate that the Community council will lodge further comments at this late stage and will today contact the Trunk Roads with a view to securing an early response.

That is a very grave misrepresentation of fact because I have in my custody copy of an email recording a Westhill representation to the case officer dated 8-1-07 in which it ends saying. "If this application is approved then the Planning Committee would be morally bankrupt if another similar flouting of the local plan were to come before it." Indeed, the above quote was even published in our Inverness Courier at the time. Westhill cc has since the event, made numerous representations against this offence but has had no acknowledgement from Highland Council.

A repetition of such contempt for community council consultation has again recently been exercised by the case officer towards Westhill cc when notice of the consultation meeting scheduled to be held in Inshes Church last night 11-1-08 only arrived in the hands of the Westhill cc on 2-1-08 allowing only nine days notice instead of the statutory fourteen. The Secretary emailed the case officer on 3-1-08 pointing out that insufficient time was being allowed to prepare representations for the public meeting. The case officer refused to postpone the meeting saying that comments could be tendered to her office after the next meeting of Westhill cc which is on 21-1-08. Once again Westhill residents have been denied the opportunity to put their case forward at the right time and in the right arena. Westhill cc lost the opportunity last night to argue its case in public, or gain public support for their views from the wider community.

In the words of Mr Justice Jeremy Sullivan. Consultation must be at a time when the proposals are still at a formative stage. The proposer must give sufficient reasons for any proposal to allow the consultee to give an intelligent and considered response. Adequate time must be given for consideration and response.

In denying Westhill cc of all the above terms of community consultation the case officer and the Highland Council planning department has again exercised utter contempt for our community and there now appears grounds for further complaints to the SPSO when Highland Council exhaust their complaint procedure on this new issue.

Information just released from the Scottish Land Register shows that Tulloch Homes Ltd bought the green wedge farm fields at Balvonie from Lower Muckovie farm in Nov2006 for £850,000. Such agricultural land would have had a market value of much less than £100,000 at that time so Tulloch must have had some strong reasons for believing that a development permit from Highland Council was imminent. Within six months Tulloch sold the land to HHA for £1.3 million, clearing a tidy £ 500,000 profit.

Profit that some might argue would not have been available without the assistance of a planning team that exercised grave irregularities throughout the planning consultation process.

The errors in the planning consultation process are so substantial and numerous as to pose a question on the competence of the case officer and a complaint is now being compiled for investigation by the Royal Town Planners Institute.

While this scandal has hit the front page headlines in our Inverness Courier this week there seems to be more to come with news now that Highland Council are agreeing to contribute to the cost of Tulloch's link road, the cost of which might make the £500,000 land deal look like peanuts.

I have now written to Highland Council Chief Executive Mr Alistair Dodds, under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, asking him who proposed this kind offer to Tulloch? Who has supported the proposal?

What is the estimated cost of the land and the road works? As you probably know, some of the irregularities that were exercised by the planning department are now the subject of an investigation by the SPSO and I have just received word from that office that their report is due to go before the Scottish Parliament in the near future. The report would not be going there unless it contains dire condemnation of the planner's work. But as if that was not bad enough, another further complaint seems destined for the SPSO just as soon as the present complaint procedure is exhausted with Highland Council.

You will have heard speculation of my threat to take the matter to the Court of Session for a judicial review and no doubt crises managers within Highland Council may have advised the Council that it is an empty threat.

I hope I can come across as a reasonable man so I must tender my reasons for fighting against this Fair and Mr David Sutherland's destruction of our landscape. For a couple of years now Mr Sutherland has been turning Inverness hinterland into housing estates and there was nothing much wrong with that until he applied for planning permission to develop at Bogbain.

Investigating behind the application details I discovered some grave irregularities in the matter which led me to take a keen interest in the planning office. Then in Nov 06 two residents from Milton of Leys contacted me and asked me to help them oppose Mr Sutherland's plans to develop on a green wedge at Balvonie of Inshes. We became strong allies and thus far we have exposed many shortcomings in the planner.s office. We now have www Planning Watch and APT, that's Action for Planning Transparency and now I am no longer a lone voice saying something is wrong with the Highland Council Planning Department.

I have been put on record saying that I am determined, if necessary, to fund a legal challenge against the outline planning permit in the Court of Session and a judicial review. It might be said that I am at a comfortable time in life where my generation do not know what they are doing, or do not care.

I have to think of a legacy to leave behind and I can think of nothing better than protecting the Bogbain landscape from Mr Sutherland's builders. To demonstrate that funds are indeed available I am advertising my two shop properties and a development site in the city for sale.

With the substantial wealth of recorded evidence that I hold against Highland Council planners I do not see this action representing much of a gamble if we do land in court. There is no time bar for presenting the case to court just so long as the defenders are kept constantly aware of the threat.

Perhaps it is time now that Highland Council asked for Counsel's Opinion on this threat of legal action. I shall of course be looking for a copy of the opinion under FoI Act.

I have called on the Chief Executive on a number of occasions to have this matter called in under the terms of a Notice of Referral procedure but the request has been refused. In the first instance I should like you to acknowledge the fact that the Outline planning permit for the Fair appears to be fundamentally flawed and then give us some assurance that you can take steps to protect the integrity of our Highland Council planning system and instigate a Notice of Referral procedure in this matter.

At a public meeting called by Highland Council planning department in Inshes Church last night to consult with the community on a Masterplan for the Highland Housing Fair Mr David Polson the Area Planning Manager made it clear in his introduction that any reference to the alleged irregularities that are presently being investigated by the SPSO would not be allowed for discussion.

Chairing the meeting was Mr David Hass. City Manager flanked by Mr Richard Hartland acting Director of Planning and Mr David Polson and Susan Torrance HHA.

Susan Torrance divulged the fact that her agency were in process of paying Mr David Sutherland £1.3 million for the Balvoniegate site for the Fair, on land that has an agricultural value of only £3,000 per acre. This suggests that the flawed planning process and the consent signed by Mr Polson last May has made a million for Tulloch Homes Ltd.

Mr Polson agreed with a statement from Bogbain that Tullochs had not been able to buy, nor were they in a position to buy, the land that is required for the link road that Tulloch are required to construct before any further homes are built at Milton of Leys and Balvonie. Mr Polson leant his support to the builders breeching the planning condition by suggesting the homes could be built in breech of the condition but not occupied.

Given the fact that the 600 unit limit condition was imposed in the interest of road safety, this presumably being  the safe capacity for the Milton of Leys . A9 junction to cope with, it seems that Mr Polson wants to ignore the hazard that construction traffic would create while building the homes that would breech the condition.

His excuse for the builders being able to breech the condition was challenged with a suggestion that if a member of the public, or at least someone other than Tulloch, approached his office with a plan to build in an area with an inadequate water supply for instance, then such an application would not be entertained until an adequate water supply was provided. Mr Polson assured the audience that such an application would be acceptable to him and he would recommend approval but impose a condition that the completed property could not be occupied till a proper water supply was on tap.

Church is no place to start arguing, so the matter rested, but from memory I seem to remember such conditions would read something like;

No work shall commence until a proper and adequate water supply has been provided to the site to the satisfaction of the planning and building control officer.

Of course if this is simply a matter that can be left to the discretion of the planning officer then Tulloch and HHA need not worry about any absence of a link road, or water supply, for that matter.

It was also pointed out to the planners that last March Mike Greaves. Director Highland Council wrote to Eleanor Scott MSP saying: Development of the Fair is also linked to impending completion of the Milton of Leys-Inshes distributor road which is long overdue in many resident's minds-completion of the road by Tullochs is a condition of the Balvonie Braes sale.

Now that Susan Torrance had just divulged the fact to the public that the land sale from Tulloch had gone through, Bogbain wanted to know why it had gone through in the absence of the link road, why was the developer once again being favoured?

No proper answer was forthcoming and with the public conscious of the need to maintain decorum and not refer to corruption in Inshes Church, the matter was not pursued further last night.

Another disturbing fact that was not presented in Church last night was the revelation from a letter released under the FoI Act by Highland Council last November where it was stated:

The second instalment of the purchase price will be recouped on development of the remaining 45 houses on Phase 2 post 2009, as will a contribution to the link road with Inshes, which we have also agreed to pay when it is built.

The record now shows that a planning condition was imposed on Tulloch at Milton of Leys where they could not build more than 600 units until they provided a new link road that would have to go down through Parks of Inshes farm, which is not in their ownership.

The record shows Tullochs were not to be paid for Balvonie until the new road was in place. Through some strange means, within the corridors of Highland Council, those terms have been changed and the deal has gone through without a road.

Recorded evidence tells us that Highland Council are now going to put tax payer's money into developing the road that should be funded by Tulloch alone.

Begs the question. Who is bending agreements and conditions to the immense

benefit of Tulloch Homes?

A Church was no place to ask such an unsavoury question last night, so, like many other questions in this corrupted planning process the matter was taken home to offer as a challenge in another arena.

As the meeting drew to a close last night Bogbain took the opportunity to remind the Highland Council officials and the audience that the threat of legal action against Highland Council was still a very live issue.

" Responding to Mr Polson's introduction, when he touched on the Ombudsman and stated that we do not want to go back there. OK I will not go back but today I received an update from the Ombudsman where he has advised me that he finished his draft report on the investigation. However, by the time it has been laid before the Scottish Parliament and sent to Scottish Ministers it might be May before we see his report.

The Ombudsman investigation is a free service and is viewed as a rehearsal for when we apply to the Court of Session for a Judicial Review.

There is no time limit on the start of the process, providing Highland Council is kept aware of the threat of court action.

It seems a great pity that the public has to come to Church to make such threats. And further details are on www bogbain.com.

Mr David Hass the Chairman then graciously accepted the position saying his Council would respond when the time came.

At the request of Inverness businessman Jim Ferguson, council officials agreed to host a further discussion at a date to be arranged to address a range of local concerns including Highland Council's overall handling of the affair.

Highlander's sensitivities were shocked and offended with news that Highland Council should again be using Inshes Church to promote their controversial Housing Fair with another exhibition there on 11th Jan. Some folk felt it was time that the planners looked at the morality of the situation and ask themselves if a house of God is an appropriate place to be peddling the type of sleaze and corruption that has thus far been revealed from this planning process.

After wrestling with the dilemma as whether to chastise or forgive the planners a little prayer has been offered to Highland Council in the hope that at least they will see how wrong it must be to desecrate Inshes Church with this issue. For it does appear to violate the sanctity of a place of worship.

THE HIGHLAND PLANNERS PRAYER
FOR THE HIGHLAND HOUSING FAIR
(Sings along to "Bless this house")

Bless our work oh Lord we pray
Help us tell more lies each day.
Bless the folks who cannot see
The corruption caused by me.

Bless the Town Hall big and grand 
Helping us develop land.
Bless the folks of Milton o Leys
Save them from the media gaze.

Bless the builders once again
Bringing us their planning gain.
Bless the link road that we've planned
Now we'll wait for Sutherland

Bless the Church and Inshes School
Helping make us planners rule.
Bless community councillors too
When we tell them what to do.

Bless the Council's crooked schemes
We'll deliver builders dreams
Bless the whole damn Housing Fair
Breaking rules will get us there.

Further information with details of exciting £1000 competition on Highland Housing Fair coming soon on www Bogbain.com

Highland Housing Fair Competition.

Highland Council invite members of the public to an exhibition for their revised Masterplan for the Highland Housing Fair at Inshes Church on 11th Jan 08.

The Highland Housing Fair planning permit has attracted widespread condemnation with allegations that the Highland Council planning department failed to follow basic community consultation rules. A complaint has been lodged with the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman but Highland Council refuse to wait for adjudication and is pressing on with the next stage of the planning process by staging an exhibition at the Inshes Church.

What can be done to focus attention on the fact that the planners broke our planning rules? What do they say about "When thinking men stop caring"?

If you care about democracy and the apparent abuse of power that is being exercised in this Housing Fair, why not come to the Inshes Church meeting and try asking the case officer one or all of the following questions? Of course you must be asking yourself how we can offer such easy prize money. Try asking simple questions like the ones below on the 11th and you might find out just how easy this competition is.

This Question is for the case officer and will yield £200 for a Yes answer.

1 According to the minute of the Planning Hearing that determined the Housing Fair application on 30-1-07, you told the planning committee that information had first been sent to Inverness South Community Council on 20th Nov 2006.

A letter from Inverness South Community Council sent to the Director of Planning in March 2007 complained that no one in the community council had received any such information. Can you now agree that your statement misled the Planning Committee?

For another chance of £200 ask this question. Same rules apply.

Subsequent investigations failed to find any evidence of such action. Can you now agree that your statement misled the Planning Committee?

3 You told the Planning Committee that a further letter had been sent to the community on 8th Jan, therefore the community council had received three consultations.

Subsequent investigations have established that it was the community council that wrote to the planning department on that date, pleading for initial information on the application. Can you now agree that your statement misled the Planning Committee?

4 You told the planning committee that the availability of the land below market value was a key consideration for them, as it would enable the HHA to offer the plots, and the eventual houses, for sale at lower prices.

Information released under terms of FoI Act now shows that the developers, Mr David Sutherland and Tulloch Homes Ltd is being paid £1.3 Million by Highland Council for farmland that this time last year was low value green wedge with a market value for farmland that was below £300,000 Can you now agree that £1.3 Million does not represent a figure below the market value of local farmland, and that you misled the Planning Committee?

5 You told the planning committee that the date of 12th Jan 2007 on your report to the planning committee was a typographical error and your report had in fact been completed on 19th Jan 2007. The 19th Jan was ten days before the planners/developers consultation meeting took place with the community council on 29th Jan 2007 Can you now agree that your report on 19th Jan 2007 was premature and mislead the Planning Committee?

Now go for the jackpots. So far you have probably won nothing. If that is the case then ask the case?

6 In a letter dated 14-2-07 to Mr Kerr Scottish Executive Development Department Planning Division Edinburgh you wrote: Neither Westhill Community Council nor the Scottish Executive Trunk Roads have provided responses on the planning application.

Following the planning hearing, Westhill cc recorded complaints to Highland Council saying that you failed to respond to their representations during the consultation period. Can you now agree that you misled the Scottish Executive Planning Department?

7 Mr David Sutherland has just published a third planning application notice in our local newspaper, to build a new farmhouse and associated buildings on the stunning landscape at Bogbain of Inshes. Given the high degree of support that you gave Mr Sutherland with gaining planning approval for the adjoining Highland Housing Fair site, and now, as case officer for his farmhouse proposal, can the public expect your support for Mr Sutherland.s aspirations to continue unabated or do you find your position is now untenable?

Sorry if you win nothing, but just remember Highland Council, bend the rules. So let us see YOU bend the rules. See you in Church on 11th, if the tables there are not overturned by some man of God before that time.

After many months of private and media investigation into allegations of maladministration regarding a planning application for a Highland Housing Fair at Balvonie of Inshes Inverness the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman has now confirmed that they will investigate the complaints that have been recorded by members of the public.

A preliminary account of the complaints comprises:

The Highland Council failed to engage in adequate consultation with Inverness South community Council and guidelines for consultation were not followed; The council have not been able to prove that ISCC were sent a consultation letter on 20th Nov 2006.

The Council did not include the Highland Housing Association application in the Weekly list of applications sent to notify community councils of applications in their area.

The council failed to respond to a letter from ISCC dated 8th Dec 2006 which stated that no information regarding the application had been received and which requested further details.

ISCC submitted an objection on 18th 2006 but did so without knowing the full details of the application as these had not been provided by the Council.

The Council sent further details, which were received on 11th Jan 2007, but this was too late as the next scheduled meeting of ISCC was on 29th January 2007(the day before the planning hearing) and there was no opportunity for ISCC to submit comments to the Council before the report to the Planning Committee was finalised.

Guidance issued by the Council regarding consultation with community Councils states that a minimum of 14 days should be given for responses to be made.

Nine internal e-mails show that the outcome of the application was prejudged by Council Planning staff.

A link road has not yet been built and there is a cap on 600 units until the road is opened. Reports show that Tulloch Homes are about to complete the 612th unit in the near future.

In total there are twelve points of complaint for consideration but another complaint has now been raised with the case officer, the Area Planning Manager and the Chief executive Mr Alistair Dodds, who have all declined to answer.

During the planning hearing, when the outline application was approved back in Jan 30th 2007. Cllr Clive Goodman added a condition that the planners and TEC services should engage in community consultation before drawing up a master plan for consultation. This important condition does not appear on the planning consent that Mr David Polson the Area Planning Manager signed last March which must render the consent in its present form incompetent, null and void and not fit for its purpose.

Northern Constabulary were invited to investigate this affair earlier this year but declined to do so suggesting that the Ombudsman office should be the first port of call with any complaints. Now that the Ombudsman has endorsed the complaints to some degree, the file is again being passed to Northern Constabulary inviting them to say whether or not a criminal investigation would be in the best public interest. Bogbain 15-9-07

20-11-06 The planning department allege that they sent a Consultation Letter out addressed to the community council chairwoman Shonaid Bowie. This was an important notice regarding proposals for 100 new houses on a protected green wedge yet it was not sent by Recorded Delivery and the chairwoman denies ever receiving it therefore it can be reasonably suggested that the letter was in fact never dispatched by the planners.

21-11-06 The case officer for the planning application, Nicola Drummond, e-mailed Colin MacKenzie Senior planner with Highland Council saying. "Obviously it is contrary to plan but also we are obviously going to approve it given the background." The background, the record shows, was the fact that Tulloch Homes had just recently acquired the farmland that was being proposed for developing the Highland Housing Fair, and Tulloch have a clear record of getting what they want from the planning department.

29-11 06 Mike Greaves at Highland Council wrote to Susan Torrance saying, "Nicola Drummond (the case officer) thinks it is a good idea to meet them ( the community) but after the expiry of the 21 day advert period when we can be clear on the extent and content of all representations made- that would involve getting a meeting with the community council early/mid January." So here we have the case officer proposing to start community consultation around fourteen days just before the planning committee hearing.

8-12-06 Inverness South Community council responded to a Public Notice for the development advertised in the Inverness courier on that date and sent a letter to Mr David Polson area planning manager, asking for their statutory planning information package for the development. Mr Polson now admits that he ignored the request.

18-12-06 Inverness South Community council sent Mr Polson a reminder that he had ignored them, and go on to lodge an objection to the proposal from the scant details that they have on the scheme. Mr Polson ignored the second letter as well as the first one.

17-1-07 Merkinch Community council wrote to Mr John D Rennilson director of planning expressing their disappointment at the unseemly haste with which the planning application had been taken forward. Mr Rennilson rejected the view.

9-1-07 Mike Greaves Director of Development at Highland Council wrote to Inverness South community council suggesting that Susan Torrance, the Fair promoter should visit the community council to brief them on the Fair. According to guidelines from the Executive, such an address should be conducted by a member of the HC planning team and not some representative for the developer.
So here we have a senior Highland Council officer promoting an infringement of the statutory community consultation process.

25-1-07 Bogbain wrote to Mr John d Rennilson pleading with him to remove the item from the forthcoming agenda for the planning committee but he rejected the appeal saying "there is no question that the timescale for the preparation of this report was entirely in order and I reject your suggestion to the contrary."

29-1-07 Susan Torrance addressed the Inverness South Community council and then it was found that the community had nobody to represent them at the planning committee meeting the following day.

30-1-07 Bob Roberts, Barry Haycock and I addressed the planning committee where I suggested that the Report from the case officer to the committee was incompetent due to a complete lack of community consultation. The comments were endorsed by Cllr Janet Home who went on to advise the committee that she had advised Mr Rennilson as far back as Sept 2006 to get community consultation started. The minute of the planning committee meeting records how the case officer told the planning committee that consultation took place on 8th Dec but that statement has now proved to be a misrepresentation of fact.

The record shows clear examples where ten pleas
for community consultation were ignored by the Director of Planning and the Area planning manager.

14-2-07 the case officer wrote to Mr Kerr at the Scottish Executive Edinburgh saying "Neither Westhill community council nor the Scottish Trunk Roads have provided responses on the planning application. I do not anticipate that the community council will lodge further comments at this late stage and I will contact Trunk Roads with a view to securing an early response." "Further comments" suggests that there had been a response from Westhill, but maybe the comments were not strong enough to be given any credence by the case officer. Westhill have now lodged complaints to Mr Rennilson alleging that they were ignored in the consultation process.

Recorded evidence clearly suggests that the planning department conspired to corrupt and frustrate the due statutory process of community consultation in order to assist the aspirations of the land developers. Such circumstances leave the Inverness South Community council in an untenable position with regards to inviting the case officer to come and address the community regarding the Master plan. Three members of the community have made complaints to the Scottish Public service Ombudsman who in turn is complaining that Highland Council have ignored three requests for information for an inquiry.

13-8-07 Representations were made to the Chairman of the Highland Council Audit and Scrutiny Committee, Dr David Alston, to have the alleged maladministration investigated before action might have to be raised in the Court of Session for a judicial inquiry. The circumstances leave the case officer in an untenable position with regards attending any public meeting that may be hosted to consider the Master plan.

Conditions imposed on the outline planning consent for the Fair include: (5) No development shall commence on site unless a detailed master Plan for the development of the entire site has been submitted to and agreed in writing by the planning authority. For the avoidance of doubt, the Master plan shall prescribe the layout, phasing, and density of development together with provision for amenity and access facilities.

We understand that the present master plan carries no details of access and parking facilities so it is suggested that the planners go away and address this discrepancy while the community waits for a result from the Ombudsman and Highland Council Audit and Scrutiny committee.

(10) Details of the location and layout of the associated housing fair exhibition area together with details of public access shall be submitted to and agreed in writing by the planning authority. Again, we understand that the Master plan is presently devoid of such detail rendering it incompetent.

There seems to be ample recorded evidence to suggest that the Outline planning consent is fundamentally flawed due to lack of community consultation and misrepresentations that were recorded in the planner.s reports to the Highland Council Planning Committee and the Executive. The newly elected planning committee has yet to consider the Master plan and it seems unfair to burden the committee with the corruption of the Outline planning process. Time is required to let the Ombudsman adjudicate on the issue and time can be gained for that process by simply rejecting the Masterplan in its present form at the moment on the basis that it is incompetent, being devoid of details for the exhibition area.

17-8-07 Two local residents made representations recorded to Mr David Polson complaining that construction work instructed by Tulloch and associated with the Housing Fair has started at Balvonie with overhead power lines being placed underground and a call was made to have the work halted.

The comments recorded in your letter to me 18-7-07 and in earlier correspondence clearly show that you are deliberately sustaining the corruption of the Balvonie planning process by masquerading the corruption of the process as simple acts of incompetence within the Highland Council planning department.

The cornerstone of the corruption exercised by your planning department was laid as early as 21-11-06 when the case officer Nicola Drummond e-mailed Mr Colin MacKenzie, principal planner at Highland Council saying. "Obviously it is contrary to plan but also we are obviously going to approve it given the background."

"The background", we now understand, was the fact that the farmland fields for the proposed development had recently come into the hands of Mr David Sutherland Tulloch Homes, so the case officer would be expected to adopt a strategy from the planning department that was as usual, sympathetic to the aspirations of this land developer.

Recorded evidence shows the planning department exercising deep prejudice in favour of the aspirations of this particular land developer. The first instance recorded was when Mr Sutherland.s contentious public notice for a new farmhouse at Bogbain was buried away in the Sport section of our local newspaper and Mr Rennilson the Director of planning at Highland and his area manager Mr David Polson refused to direct the newspaper to correct the matter.

The second instance was when Mr Sutherland created a new access track at Bogbain violating an important condition that had been imposed on the development by the planning committee. The planning department continues to refuse exercising any enforcement action against the developer.

We are now witnessing the planning department applying an interpretation on the status of community woodland at Cradlehall that might enable Mr Sutherland and the Baptist Church to build there. Under such circumstances it is easy to appreciate and accept how the case officer would feel obliged to adopt a cunning strategy with tactics that would frustrate community consultation in Mr Sutherland's development plans for Balvonie.

The deceit and corruption of the planning process was then endorsed by Mike Greaves, Highland Council Director of Development, in his e-mail to Susan Torrance, the Housing Fair promoter, where he wrote. "Nicola Drummond thinks it is a good idea to meet them (the community council) but after the expiry of the 21 day advert period when we can be clear on the extent and content of all representations made."

But how could representations be made by the public when the case officer was not fulfilling her statutory obligation to inform the public in the first place?

Here is very clear evidence that the case officer was keeping a statutory service and valuable information on this development proposal well away from the public, and scheming to visit the community only two weeks before the proposal was due to go before the planning committee.

The record now shows that the case officer never did visit the community council to brief them on the development and contrary to Executive guidelines the consultation address was made to the community by the fair promoter Susan Torrance on the very last night before the planning committee meeting that was to determine the matter.

From this record of circumstances, both you as Chief Executive of Highland Council and the public are now being asked to decide whether or not we have experienced incompetence on a grand scale or a cunning deceitful plot by the Highland Council planning department to frustrate and corrupt the statutory planning process for Balvonie in favour of Mr Sutherland.s scheme for the farmland.

A picture suggesting further corruption of the planning process is presented with the fact that the original Consultation Letter, allegedly sent out by the planning department to the community council dated 20-11-06, was never sent by recorded delivery. In your letter 18-7-07 you state that the letter was not returned as undelivered. Well of course it would not be returned as undelivered when the record shows that it was not sent by recorded delivery.

The recipient for the Letter states that she never received it so we must now presume that it was never dispatched by the planning department in the first place.

Whether or not that was down to incompetence or deceit is up to the public to decide but then it must be remembered that the community wrote two letters to the Area Planning Manager, begging for their statutory consultation material and the manager ignored or neglected both demands.

Such action would accord with a theory of a conspiracy being exercised within your planning department to frustrate the public consultation process and aid the developer.

The balance of probability that we may have witnessed simple incompetence has diminished to a point where only a fool would ignore the stark reality of corruption of the due planning process.

The corruption of the planning process was sustained during our investigation of the matter with grave misrepresentations being recorded to me by Mr Richard Hartland, Head of Planning and Building Standards and you, while holding the post of Director of Corporate Services.

Mr Hartland, in his letter to me dated 23-4-07, alleged that the community council did not deny ever receiving a consultation. The record clearly shows that the community council recorded a formal complaint about the lack of consultation to Mr John Rennilson Director of Planning dated 7-3-07.

The outgoing Chief Executive of Highland Council Mr Arthur McCourt misrepresented the facts of the issue when he alleged in a letter to me that the chairwoman of the community council had never denied receiving The Consultation Letter. Recorded evidence now clearly shows that every member of the Highland Council team that has been involved in the Balvoniegate affair has left it with a tarnished image that is not going to go away.

As I understand the situation. A court will not entertain action for a judicial review at the moment while other avenues are available for correcting the alleged maladministration. The record shows that I have asked you on numerous occasions to call this matter in under a Notice of Referral procedure and you have refused, alleging that you can see nothing wrong with the process. The outline planning decision was determined by the outgoing Highland Council planning committee on false information presented to that planning committee by your planning department. That decision must now be seen as flawed and incompetent.

The next part of the planning process entails community consultation between your planning department and the community regarding the Balvonie master plan, but as far as I know, the case officer has not tendered any offer for a public meeting on the matter to the community council and under the strange circumstances surrounding this case, it is easy to appreciate why. We now have a new planning committee where councillors will have to examine their own ethical standards and decide from all the evidence that is now at their disposal whether or not they can approve a planning application that now appears to be so fundamentally flawed, blighted by maladministration and under investigation by the SPSO and the media.

It appears to me that until the newly elected planning committee decides what to do with the Balvoniegate process there is no need to instigate a judicial review. Nor is there a time bar on lodging such an action, just so long as you are kept aware of the threat of such action during this public consultation period.

Looking forward to your reaction.

Yours sincerely. Brian MacGregor

Cc Highland Councillors
Newsdesks
www Bogbain.com

I was in correspondence with Mr Arthur McCourt regarding this issue while his tenure in office was drawing to a close and he was basing his defence of the incompetent planning consent on a spurious assertion that the Chairwoman of Inverness South Community Council had not denied receiving the Consultation Letter that Highland Council planning department allege that they had sent out to her on 20th Nov 2006.

When I presented details of Mr McCourt.s letter containing the spurious suggestion that the chairwoman had received the Consultation Letter but had not divulged it to Inverness South Community Council, the chairwoman announced to an audience of fifteen members of the public, three Highland Councillors and seven members of the community council that she had told Mr David Polson that she had never received the Consultation Letter.

I wrote to Mr McCourt outlining the above facts in letters dated 4-6-07 and 26-6-07 and in his last letter to me dated 26-6-07 he said he was looking into the issues that I had raised and would contact me again as soon as his enquiries were completed but I never heard from him again.

You will also be aware of the fact that at the end of the last Inverness South Community Council meeting it was resolved that the planning sub committee should formulate a strategy for a judicial review into the maladministration that has been exposed in this planning issue.

Clear recorded evidence now shows that Inverness South Community Council never received their initial statutory Consultation Letter and two written requests addressed to your planning department begging for the statutory information was neglected and ignored.

You have been repeatedly warned about the threat of a judicial review, directly by me, and in several local media reports.

The SPSO has advised that they could not continue with their investigation into the alleged maladministration as long as there is a threat of a judicial review so I have agreed to postpone legal action for the moment.

However. The issue has faced us with a strange turn of events because a couple of newly elected councillors have now written to the ISCC urging the community to accept the spurious planning consent.

It seems that they have completely forgotten the fact that they were elected to represent the views of their community, and that they were not elected to support and prop up a Highland Council planning department that is exercising maladministration to turn a green wedge into building sites for the benefit of landowner David Sutherland and Tulloch Homes. I have now reported the action of the two councillors to the Ethical Standards in Public Life Commission for Scotland and this in turn has caused us to wonder, how can any Highland Councillor who now knows the full extent of the maladministration that is being exercised by your Highland Council possibly find it ethical to vote on the proposal for the master plan that is now out for consultation?

Indeed. On the other hand. How can any representative from the planning department be expected to show face at a public consultation meeting regarding Balvonie while the SPSO is investigating this matter, while someone is still contemplating a judicial review and while the whole community remains so deeply offended by the maladministration?

Wider community hostility towards the planning department and Mr David Sutherland and Tulloch Homes is compounded now with the fact that residents in Cradlehall are up in arms over a proposed sale of community woodland from Tulloch Homes to the Baptist Church.

It appears that we now have three communities that are all quite united in opposition to David Sutherland's assault on green belt at Bogbain, Balvonie and Cradlehall.

I understand that there is no time limit for starting a judicial review just so long as your Council is kept adequately warned about the prospect of legal action.

This means that such action need not be taken until the new Highland Council has had an opportunity to decide for themselves, at the next stage in the planning process, whether or not it will be ethical for them to consider approving the master plan under all the irregularities and maladministration that has been exposed in the matter.

Due to the amount of very serious misrepresentations that Mr Rennilson and Mr Hartland have recorded to me in this matter, and the misrepresentations that were contained in the planners report to the planning committee, I must insist that under the FOI Act you must furnish me with a regular update of all correspondence between Highland Council and the SPSO regarding Balvoniegate.

Motives for my involvement have now been questioned in the media and I feel that is in the best interest of everyone that I stand accountable for my actions in the earnest hope that readers can find them reasonable, honourable and of assistance to the wider community.

Recorded evidence clearly suggests that for quite some time now the planning department within Highland Council has been overworked and out of control.

Speculative developers have not been slow to capitalise on this situation and manipulate the system to their advantage. This first came to my attention last year when Mr David Sutherland of Tulloch Homes applied to erect a new farmhouse, gate lodge and stables on the stunning landscape here at Bogbain of Inshes. The matter was brought up during a meeting of Strathnairn community council and we discovered that nobody at the meeting had seen a public notice published to say that such a development was contrary to the local plan.

Subsequent investigations led me to discover that the contentious planning notice had been published, but not positioned in the usual spot in the newspaper.

It had been buried in the Sport section. I then checked the position for public notices in every edition of the previous year's publications and found that from all the editions during that period, the one carrying David Sutherland's contentious scheme for Bogbain was the one isolated instance of a Public Notice being buried in the Sport section.

I faxed Mr John D Rennilson with my concerns and later that same day I was invited to meet Mr David Polson in his Church St office where he argued that it was all a silly mistake. I insisted that the Notice must be advertised properly and at last the planning manager conceded, nudging me with his elbow as he added, "Och it was only a wee joke." I was struck by the complete absence of impartiality from such a senior public official.

When I received a copy of his "instructions to the newspaper" he had only intimated that he had received a complaint from a member of the public and ended by leaving matters to the discretion of the Editor.

I was left with a distinct impression that the planning department, and the newspaper, were very prepared to help with the aspirations of Mr David Sutherland to the disadvantage of the general public.

Last November I received a visit from two members of the Milton of Leys community. who intimated that Mr David Sutherland had recently bought two farm fields beside Bogbain at Balvonie of Inshes, with a view to some building development and they asked me if I would assist with a campaign to protect what was a green wedge. I accepted their invitation and joined them at the next meeting of Inverness South Community Council on 4th Dec where I made it clear to the audience that I would support the community council to oppose any development on the Balvonie ground. The Chairwoman and others that are active in planning matters for the community council were all surprised by our news and Cllr Janet Homes at the end of the meeting intimated that nothing could or should be done until the community received their statutory consultation material from the planning department.

The record shows that Highland Council advertised the planning proposal in a public notice on 8th Dec and on that same date the community council wrote to Mr David Polson requesting their statutory information pack. He never replied. They wrote a reminder to Mr Polson on 18th Dec. He never replied. The rest of the corruption of this flawed planning process is contained in an advert that was published in Inverness Courier Friday 8th June. Copy enclosed. If I had not been alerted to the irregularities that were exercised in the David Sutherland planning application last year I would not have become embroiled in this scheme that David now has under his control to turn green farm land into building sites.

When the fair ends, a land developer is going to benefit and be left to develop the car parking area for housing, and it is not to hard to imagine who will be in line for the infrastructure work that will undoubtedly be constructed to aid further development of the parking and exhibition area after the fair.

The evidence before us suggests that David Sutherland is being presented with access to a public funded building site on a green wedge where the planning department have fallen over themselves to put him in this favoured position using irregular means.

Planning is meant to be about trying to look into the future to create something sustainable and for the good of the whole community.

For today's Highland Councillors to support this corrupt planning process, at this juncture, would only endorse and sustain a corrupt planning department within our Highland Council.

This is a big event, of International importance. It is not a dormer window job.

It was meant to be a showcase for forward thinking creative work. It has now turned into a showcase for council planning corruption.

We must stop this corrupt process right now and the bad publicity will stop. At the dawning of a new Highland Council we must seize this opportunity to put the planning office in order and restore the integrity of Highland Council. I am sure that you can agree that the good folk of the Highlands will expect nothing less from you.

I hope you have found this record of events informative and can now see that the public deserve to triumph in this matter.

Or do you want to be perceived as one of the many folk in the great fable who said that they believed that the Emperor was wearing a suit of invisible clothes. Substitute David Sutherland, for Emperor and the illegal planning permit for the invisible clothes and tell me who is in the all-together, the all-together in Balvonie?

According to reports in the Inverness Courier today, you are taking an interest in this Highland Housing Fair scandal and that you are going to put questions to the retiring Chief Executive of Highland Council to get to the bottom of the alleged irregularities that were apparently exercised in the matter by Highland Council Planning Department

From all the recorded evidence at our disposal I should imagine the most important question that you must ask him is when will he announce that the Fair can not get planning permission with such a flawed planning process?

Of course you have only been introduced to the e-mail business that Ms Nicola Drummond recorded to her control office in Glenurquhart Rd, and that little bit of evidence is simply the tip of the iceberg.

May I take this opportunity to enlighten you to the facts of the alleged irregularities that were exercised by the planning department and were first revealed to the public in a letter from me to Mr Richard Hartland, Head of planning and building control at Highland Council?

This letter has been published on my web site; www Bogbain, since 19-4-07. Many viewers must be left wondering what has gone wrong with the integrity of local government after they read the facts.

The recorded evidence suggests that the planning department seem to think that it is a "done deal" every time that a site owned by Mr David Sutherland and Tulloch comes before the planning department. One cannot blame Ms Nicola Drummond for going down the road that she was expected to go along as usual by her Director of Planning in order to help the aspirations of this particular land developer.

There is no doubt that the e-mail on its own is rather incriminating but when you add the catalogue of irregularities that were exercised elsewhere in this planning application, a very serious picture of gross maladministration emerges.

Along with the Chairman of Milton of Leys Residents association and a member of Inverness South Community Council I made representations to Northern Constabulary back at the start of Feb 2007.

After an interview with Superintendent David O.Connor and Chief Inspector Ian Cox we were persuaded that it might simply be a civil matter and they directed us to contact the SPSO in the first instance. We made representations to the SPSO who now advise that they do not report matters to the police for action.

It is plain to see that members of our community have been given the run around by the Highland Council until a new Highland Councillor, Mr John Holden was recently elected for our area and helped to take matters to a head at a public meeting after the Housing Fair open day in Inches Church last Tuesday evening.

Cllr Holden has now called on the Chief Executive to hold a public enquiry into this alleged maladministration and there is no doubt in our minds that he will get the backing of not only our local community but the Highland public at large.

I hope that you find the recorded evidence that I furnished to Mr Hartland to be enlightening in the first instance and that you can agree with our view that the material represents a matter of grave concern for anyone concerned with maintaining the integrity of local government and democracy

During the Inverness South Community Council meeting in your Church hall last Monday evening I could not help but draw a parallel between what is due to happen in your hall next Tuesday with what Jesus found in the Temple the time he overturned the tables and chased a commercial practice out the door.

Now I am not suggesting, or expecting that you are likely to create such drama but when you know some more facts of the issue I am sure that you will want to take some action to safeguard your flock from, well, let.s just call it sleazy commercial irregularities.

A Trojan horse, in the shape of a Highland Housing Fair, is being introduced to a green wedge field at Balvonie and it is being stabled in your Temple on Tuesday. It is being used to turn green farm fields into house building plots rather like water into wine, except there is no miracle in all this, just good old fashioned commercial corruption.

The community is split on the issue. There are folk who can see the corruption and want to do something about it and then there are the others who can see the corruption but are too weak, comfortable or lazy, to do anything about it. And then there is the uninformed and the folk who can't make their minds up.

If you feed Highland Housing Fair into your computer you will find facts that Inverness Courier & Tulloch Times can't tell you.

On the www Bogbain.com web site you will find a letter from me to a Mr Richard Hartland Head of Planning at Highland Council and it presents a fair resume of this planning issue.

It appears that what Highland Council is trying to do is not legal, and if a planning consent is signed under the present circumstances then it will be challenged in the Court of Session and I have made this very clear to the Council.

Perhaps after you have viewed the web sites you might be moved to perform some dramatics, and if so, let me know and I can arrange a skip and media coverage. If we can elevate our humble sheep dog at Bogbain to the status of Inverness personality of the year, imagine what we could do with Temple trash.

I will be shifting our Bogbain Year of Culture mobile exhibit to the vicinity of your Church any moment now and I wonder. If you are not inclined to intervene in this corrupt process would you would mind someone handing out leaflets near the door on Tuesday and we can try to clean up this matter, one way or another.

Thank you for introducing yourself to me at the planning office today and explaining that there is still no Review available yet from Highland Council regarding the Council's neglect of community consultation in the Housing Fair issue.

I had called at reception to inspect the working file and determine just how many times your department had been advised about absence of any community consultation regarding the Fair and the result is simply quite shocking. Here is what is on record:

21-11-06 The case officer wrote to Colin MacKenzie-Planning saying. "Obviously it is contrary to plan but also we are obviously going to approve it given the background" This statement was made on the very day after the consultation period was supposed to have been launched.

It sounds like the start of a conspiracy to promote another Tulloch Homes building site in the long term, and the statement certainly makes it clear that the planners will not want any objections to the scheme from locals with any troublesome community consultation rubbish.

27-11-06 Barry Haycock Chairman of Milton of Leys residents association wrote to Mr Rennilson recording an absence of consultation.

Barry now finds, like the rest of us, it's a waste of time writing to Rennilson.

29-11-06 Mike Grieves at Highland Council wrote to Susan Torrance, the Fair promoter, saying Nicola Drummond (the case officer) "thinks it is a good idea to meet them (the community council) but after expiry of the 21 day advert period when we can be clear on the extent and content of all representations made" - that would involve getting a meeting with the cc early / mid Jan.

So, back in Nov, the case officer is suggesting consultation with the cc takes place around fifteen days before the date of the planning committee meeting.

She phones Mike saying. "Wise up Mike! Alert the locals too soon and we will have a flood of objections. Hold on till a couple of weeks just before the planning meeting, then send out Susan Torrance to mesmerise them, an' they won't know what has hit them. Aye! Right enough Nicky", says Mike, accepting again that she has the best brains in the Church St office.

8-12-06 Inverness South Community Council wrote to Mr Polson outlining the fact that they had still not received their statutory consultation material. Mr Polson has admitted that he ignored the request.

15-12-06 Mr Bob Roberts wrote to Mr Polson saying; No consultation has taken place with the community. He got a standard acknowledgement letter by return.

18-12-06 Inverness south wrote again to Mr Polson reminding him that their request for statutory information had been ignored. Mr Polson now admits that he ignored the second request as well.

9-1-07 Mike Greaves at Highland Council wrote to Inverness South cc suggesting that Susan Torrance should brief the community on the Fair.

This clearly shows that Mike understood that there was no community council consultation going on and that his conspiracy with the Church St office was working.

17-1-07 Merkinch cc secretary wrote to Mr John D Rennilson saying that they would like to express their disappointment at the unseemly haste with which this planning application has been taken forward. Merkinch were not due to meet until 15th Feb and that would be after the planning committee meeting on 30-1-07. Mr Rennilson responded saying. "I do not believe that there has been inadequate time to comment" Who can believe what Mr Rennilson says he believes anymore?

25-1-07 I wrote to Mr John D Rennilson asking him to withdraw the application from the agenda for the forthcoming planning meeting, on the grounds that the statutory time that must be afforded to the community council for public consultation had not been observed by his planning department. He responded immediately by e-mail that same day saying. "There is no question that the timescale for the preparation of this report was entirely in order and I reject entirely your suggestion to the contrary." Events have proved Mr Rennilson wrong.

30-1-07 I addressed the planning Hearing and advised planners and the planning committee that the Report to the planning committee was incompetent due to a complete lack of community consultation. My comments were endorsed by Cllr Janet Home who went on to advise the committee that she had asked Mr Rennilson the Director of Planning as far back as Sept 2006 to get community consultation started.

This record shows clear examples where ten pleas for community consultation were ignored by the Director of Planning and the Area Planning manager.

Is this just incompetence or is it part of a conspiracy and a corruption of the due planning process?

"We are obviously going to approve it given the background," sure suggests that a little bit of conspiracy would be very handy. Spreads the risk and the responsibility.

In your letter to me dated 13-4-07 you say that the Inverness South Community Council was indeed formally notified of the application on 20 November 06. I have now viewed a letter to Mr Rennilson where the community council say in clear terms that they did not receive the consultation letter that you allege was sent out on 20th Nov.

This was an important consultation letter. For a hundred house development. On a green wedge. It was sent out by Highland Council without it being covered by Recorded Delivery. Evidence now in the public domain suggests that the planning department did not want objections from the public and especially not from Inverness South community council, so why send them a consultation letter at all? Who within that community council would cause a fuss if the statutory consultation letter went missing, or was never posted at all? It would be just another little joke, a bit of business sport, like the time that David Sutherland's planning notice for a new farmhouse at Bogbain was allowed to be buried in the Sport section of the Inverness Courier & Tulloch Times.

Yes.This might be breaching another statutory requirement in this corrupt planning application, but has corruption not become just part of the planning culture?

You say the Community Council have formally confirmed that the comments comprised within their original comments of 18 Dec 06 "was sufficient".

That was clearly not the case, because the Cllr promoting the Fair in the Planning Chamber ridiculed the fact that nobody was there in the Chamber representing Inverness South community council or Westhill community council, at the planning meeting.

We should not speculate on how matters could have turned out differently had there been proper statutory community consultation but it is obvious from the calibre of the objections that were recorded that there would have been a greater volume recorded if more consultation time had been allowed. You also intimate that you have no reason to doubt the integrity of the information with which I have been provided and that you are currently reviewing the very many procedures and practices within the planning service.

If, as you say, you do not doubt the integrity of my information, then we must all accept the fact that the consultation process was fundamentally flawed and that the planning consent in its present state is incompetent and can not be signed.

If it is signed, then there will be absolutely no hesitation in raising an action at the Court of Session to challenge it with plenty community backing. If it is signed, then that might be the point at which Northern Constabulary may be forced to start to investigate.

For that reason, I am keen to see Highland Council's Review of the matter and a copy of Council's Opinion, as soon as possible.

Since the date of the planning meeting, much evidence of grave corruption of this planning process has come to light with the result that countless letters of complaint have landed on the desks of Mr John D Rennilson, Mr Alistair Dodds and Mr Arthur McCourt.

The matter has been reported to Northern Constabulary and the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman. Planningwatch UK has been formed to focus a spotlight on the many planning irregularities that have been exercised.

Even the Inverness Courier, a staunch supporter of every David Sutherland development on green fields, published adverse reports on the actions of Highland Council in this matter.

Westhill community council secretary alleges that his last three e-mails to the planners, with representations against the application were ignored, and I believe the community council has now tendered a letter of complaint to Mr Rennilson and MSP's

i But if that was not bad enough, then turn to a letter from the case officer addressed to Mr Kerr at the Scottish Executive Edinburgh dated 14-2-07 where at 5 it reads.

Neither Westhill Community Council nor the Scottish Trunk Roads have provided responses on the planning application. I do not anticipate that the Community Council will lodge further comments at this late stage and will today contact the Trunk Roads with a view to securing an early response. Do the planners think that the folk at Westhill "don't know that the war is over, or that the allies are in Berlin?"

There is nothing in the case file to demonstrate that further work was done with the Trunk Road folk and no Trunk Roads Report rests in the file.

According to our research. Ten letters of representation were lodged against the development to Highland council, yet only four were conveyed down to the Executive Gravely distorting the picture of the application.

None were representations from community councils. It can be clearly understood why the actual letter of objection from Inverness South cc was never presented to the Executive. The letter also contained incriminating evidence that Highland Council had not carried out their statutory duty towards the community. The letter showed how the Council had held the statutory consultation material back from Inverness South community council perverting the course of justice to a great degree.

There is no evidence at all in the file that Strathnairn community council ever tendered any representation and when Mr Polson was challenged on that matter during his recent public address to Strathnairn community council, he declined to answer, stating that he would respond direct to me in private, but he has thus far failed to do so.

What has happened to the Strathnairn representation that has gone missing along with the representations from Westhill?

Thus far in the issue you have been able to maintain a low profile with a somewhat unblemished integrity. However, a view of your letter to Eleanor Scott MSP dated 13-4-07 suggests that corruption of facts is maybe endemic throughout the planning department.

In your letter you say: "Formal consultations were sent out to all statutory consultees on 20th Nov. Inverness South community council were included within that list and this has not been disputed by them." What is Eleanor going to make of such a grave misrepresentation of true fact when she reads a copy of the complaint from Inverness South community council that was recently sent to your department, where it says that nobody in the community council received the Consultation Letter dated 20th Nov?

Eleanor's office maybe entered the arena initially to appeal against the loss of the Balvonie Green Wedge and their representations were ignored by your office. However, they have now got a better view of who is enabling the desecration of Green Space and who is working against the public interest in Highland Council planning department and the misrepresentation recorded in your letter to Eleanor must not be allowed to go unchallenged. I sincerely hope that you will put the record straight with Eleanor before I have to. Perhaps it is time that your department looked at this Housing Fair land issue from another angle and you might begin to appreciate just why there is so much widespread hostility to the development.

Casting aside the alleged corruption of the consultation process, and the rape of a green wedge for a moment, take a look at another bit of sleaze that is embodied in the background to the issue. Evidence suggests that Mr David Sutherland bought the Balvonie farm fields in the hope that in the long run the City would burst its seams and development would one day be allowed at Balvonie. But he was presented with a unique opportunity to get a fast return on his investment by obliging the Highland Housing Fair organiser with an offer of some land for her Fair at Balvonie. The organiser is a past director of one of his companies so a scheme was hatched whereby the Fair folk will gain planning permission immediately for building on the Green Wedge and using taxpayer's money they paid £6,500 for the planning application to Highland Council.

This was money that came from Highland Council coffers in the first place. So by giving it back to the Highland Council coffers it might be argued that the planning department are doing all the planning work for this site development, free of charge.

Susan Torrance, the Fair organiser, addressing a public meeting recently disclosed that Highland Council will use taxpayer's money and pay around two million pounds to construct the roads, the drainage and the entire infrastructure throughout the field that the fair is to be established in. The competition houses will be built on the bottom half of the west field with car parking and other exhibitions erected in the top half of the field.

When the competition ends in 2009 Mr Sutherland is to be allowed to build houses on the top half of the field, using the infrastructure that taxpayer's paid for.

He will enjoy the benefit of free outline planning permission that the Housing Fair gained for the Green Wedge. He will not be asked for a developer contribution, because the Green Wedge is not a development area.

Anyone in David's shoes would be hoping that as few houses as possible will actually be built for the competition. Because then, his firm Tulloch Homes, can take up all the slack, building on all the spare land left over from the failed competition.

No doubt you can guess what company has been tipped to do the infrastructure work. Work that we can bet will be designed to aid the developer building in the top half of the field when the competition ends.

Correct us if we are wrong with some of the detail but this is the sordid picture that your office and the Fair organiser's office have presented to the general public.

We hope that what has been recorded here, all in the public interest, will be of some help to all who will be involved in the deliberations that are due to take place within your department on Tuesday to form the Review.

We sincerely hope you will be able to agree with the suggestion that the planning consent can not be signed in its present form unless the pen is held in the hand of a fool. At the very least, there is ample recorded evidence that dictates justification for calling this matter in under the Notice of Referral procedure without further delay.

The record shows that I have made four written requests to you seeking a copy of a Review on this planning consultation issue under the terms of the Freedom of Information act and all my requests have been ignored dictating that in order to get a reaction I must now publicise the issue on the internet. Perhaps we can now look forward to viewing a copy of the Review and Minute of your Tuesday meeting before the end of the business week.

A planning application for a Highland Housing Fair culminating in a hundred house development on a green wedge south of Inverness is now on your desk for consideration.

Members of our community are complaining that Highland Council ignored the statutory consultation process with two community councils in the matter. Letters of representation have gone to Highland Council, the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman, The Executive and Northern Constabulary with no effect.

We have now gathered strong recorded evidence for your consideration and sincerely hope that you can help our community.

Highland Council alleges that on 20th Dec 06 they posted a Consultation Letter to Inverness South Community Council marking a start of a consultation period. It was not sent by recorded delivery and the community say they did not get the letter.

On 8th Dec. A public Notice was published in our local paper because the development was against the Local Plan and on the same day the community council wrote to Highland Council saying they had still not received their statutory information and plans for the development. Highland Council did not reply.

On 18th Dec, a second request was submitted to Highland Council along with a brief objection recorded against the development with information gathered from local knowledge of the proposal.

On 8th Jan.2007 Highland Council sent the information to the community council with a note of apology for the delay by recorded delivery, post marked 9th Jan.

On 12th Jan. The Highland Council case officer for the planning application signed off her report to the planning committee recommending approval for the application.

This was done long before the community council met on 29th Jan when the community agreed to let their brief and simple objection stand. Unfortunately, nobody was available to represent the community at the planning committee Hearing the following day.

During the Hearing I intimated that the report was incompetent because of the absence of community consultation but a Councillor promoting the development ridiculed the fact that nobody was present to support the community council objection and the community objection was ignored and defeated.

After gathering this recorded evidence together from various quarters pleas were made to Highland Council to call the matter in under the Notice of Referral procedure but we are getting no response thus far.

We sincerely hope that you can assist us and simply instruct or influence Highland Council to go through the correct statutory planning process. Go back to the beginning with the application.

If not, then our community will be left with no alternative but to arrange fund raising events and mount a legal action against Highland Council in the Court of Session. There would seem to be something far wrong with a system of Government where a green wedge can only be protected from a land developer by such action. In the first instance we would like to know where the application is in the scheme of things and also what you feel that you can do for our community.

The proposed site is in an area of outstanding beauty at the gateway to Inverness and the northern Highlands and is well worth protecting as part of our heritage.

I am responding to your letter dated 23-2-07 in which you advised me to direct this complaint to the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman so that if evidence of criminality is uncovered during the course of investigation by that office then they can report the matter to your police force.

The Ombudsman has now responded saying that they do not report anything to the police, and that it is incumbent on the police to deal with complaints direct from the public so that is why this complaint is back on your desk. At a meeting of Inverness south Community Council in Inshes Church Hall last Monday evening 5-3-07 I presented the chair person and your Constable Tom Smythe with a recorded complaint listing irregularities that are a matter of public record in the Balvonie planning issue.

Some more incriminating evidence has just come to light and it is felt your force should investigate without any further delays in the matter.

As part of a private investigation into irregularities that have been recorded to you I visited Highland Council planning office in Church St on Friday 9-3-07 and the area planning manager, Mr David Polson provided me with a copy of a Consultation Letter that he alleges was sent out to Inverness South Community Council on 20th Nov 2006 as part of the statutory planning process for the Highland Housing Fair at Balvonie. It was not addressed to the person who is responsible for dealing with the community council planning matters but strangely it was addressed to Inverness South Community council C/o Mrs Shonaid Bowie 63 Castleton Village Milton of Leys Inverness IV2 6GY.

This was an important letter introducing the community to the fact that a hundred house developments were planned for a green wedge in their area. As a statutory piece of very important planning material it should have been sent out by Recorded Delivery, but in this instance it had not been delivered by Recorded Delivery. Mr Polson also provided me with a copy of a letter that was addressed to him from the person who is responsible for the community council planning correspondence to Highland Council, That is Mrs Jean Pumford 2 Druid Temple Way Inverness. It is dated 8th Dec 2006 and you can see from the copy enclosed it says.

As we have no details of this planning application could you please send detailed planning application , etc etc. Here is clear recorded evidence that the community council did not get their statutory rights from Highland Council. Evidence suggests that Mr Polson ignored that letter and did not reply to it, because on 18th Dec 2006 he received a second request for the information from Mrs Jean Pumford, and I enclose a copy of the second request letter that I obtained from Mr Polson on Friday.

This was also neglected, and ignored by Mr Polson, until on 8-1-07 when a standard circular advised Mrs Pumford and the community council that the planning committee meeting for the application had been set for 30th January 2007 and that their letter dated 18th December was being attended to by Highland Council. While it might be fair to suggest at this juncture that what is recorded above is just an example of Highland Council incompetence, the general public witnessed some very peculiar actions at the Inverness South community Council meeting last Monday night.Actions that puts a different complexion on the matter.

I had advertised the fact in the local newspapers that an opportunity existed to discuss the Balvonie planning issue at the Inshes meeting, but when the public arrived they were informed that no questions would be answered by the community council or Highland council representatives that were present in the hall. Many members of the public were turned away and had to go home even before the meeting started. By around half time, nearly a third of the meeting had gone home in disgust or protest. Towards the end of the meeting I asked for a show of hands to signify how many folk that were left in the room had come to find out why there had been no public consultation between the community council and Highland council and the majority raised their hands but the chair still refused to address the issue and explain what the community council had done or intended to do.

Mr Polson also intimated during our meeting that on Monday night it was clarified that all future correspondence from the planning department to Inverness South Community Council must now be directed to Shonaid Bowie and NOT Mrs Jean Pumford. There was clear evidence to the public on Monday night that a cover-up was in operation in the hall. Any reasonable person gleaning the facts of the matter would be bound to conclude that some form of planning process corruption is being exercised.

On the one hand you have the Balvonie farm land developers who stand to make a considerable financial gain if the farm land can be turned into housing development land. On the other hand you have the plight of the general public who are witnessing their Green environment being bulldozed away for the selfish benefit of the developers. Do we now have to demonstrate to the public that we have a police force that will not act in the interest of the general public against this corruption, but is content to sit back and let the developers, assisted by persons unknown at the moment, corrupt the planning system? We are concerned with a statutory requirement and a regulation that has been breached for the benefit of a land developer.

This matter has been, and will continue to be, addressed to the Scottish Executive and MSP.s. The Ombudsman road is a long slow route for any justice but your force on the other hand should be able to conduct some investigation in Church St and Glenurquhart Rd immediately, and then you can decide if we are dealing with gross incompetence or criminal behaviour but in the public interest you must first examine the evidence.

I am investigating the allegations that you recorded in your letter to me dated 6th March 2007. In which you stated:

Inverness South Community Council was consulted on 20November and on 17 January 2007. The Community Council sent in an objection on 8December2006 and a follow up on 18 December 2006.

I had an interview with Mr David Polson Highland Council Area Planning Manager in your Church St Office this morning and he presented me with recorded evidence from the planning file that proves that your statement is a gross misrepresentation of fact.

I have copies of what you misrepresent as .consultation. and intend to make the misrepresentations public in order to put pressure on your department to correct the irregularities that were exercised in this planning application by Highland Council.

The first important piece of new evidence that Highland Council exercised a corruption of the due planning process is contained within a copy of a Highland Council CONSULTATION LETTER dated 20th Nov 2006. It is addressed to Inverness South Community Council C/o Shonaid Bowie. 63 Castleton Village Milton of Leys Inverness IV2 GY
It is a standard letter of introduction to a proposed development at Balvonie of Inshes
It said that the planning application and plans for the development were enclosed and asks for prompt replies to the consultation process.
Mr Polson confirmed that the material had NOT been sent out by Recorded Delivery
Mr Polson confirmed that his department got no reply from Shonaid Bowie.
This now means that no consultation took place between the community council and the planning department on 20th Nov 2006.

There is clear evidence that Mr Polson was made aware of the stark fact that no community consultation was taking place because on 8th December 2006, Mrs Jean Pumford and Evelyn Welsh, Correspondence & Planning Assistants for Inverness South cc wrote to him saying:
Dear Mr Polson. Milton of Leys residents are very concerned about the planning application for the above and fear it encroaches onto the A 9 green belt corridor.
As we have no details of this planning application could you please send the detailed planning application with a map showing the distance from the A9 and it.s relationship to any land reserved as the green belt corridor.
Cc to Councillor J Home and Councillor N Donald.

You can see that this is NOT a letter of objection, as you have claimed it to be, but a note of concern and a simple request for Statutory information that Highland Council were withholding from the community council. Mr Polson ignored this request for statutory information and did not reply to Jean rendering the consultation process fundamentally flawed and incompetent.

Jean wrote to Mr Polson again on 18th Dec2006, saying.
We requested more information about the above planning application on 8th Dec and so far have not had a reply.
The 21 days are now drawing near and Christmas is next week we feel we have to respond with the information available. (Information from Bogbain)

Again, copies were sent to Cllrs Home and Donald but Mr Polson did not reply to Jean. On 8th January 2007 a standard letter addressed to Jean and Evelyn arrived from Highland Council saying her letter was now receiving attention and to reply within 10 days if they wished an opportunity to speak at The Hearing which was scheduled for 30th January.

This record clearly shows that Highland Council did not enter into any public consultation at all with the community council and the case officer Nicola Drummond signed her Report to the planning committee dated 12th Jan recommending approval of the planning proposal.

Furthermore. This morning Mr Polson and Nicola Drummond could find no trace of any consultation that you allege took place on 17th January 2007.

It is now quite clear that the Drummond Report that went in front of the planning committee on 30th January 2007 was fundamentally flawed because the Statutory information for community consultation had never been Recorded to the Inverness South Community Council. At their meeting on 4th December, when I introduced the matter to the community council, nobody, including the chair, Shonaid Bowie, appeared to have any knowledge of the planning application. The police have been asked to look into this corruption of a statutory planning regulation and I shall now furnish them with this fresh evidence.

Someone should now be asking why the Consultation Letter(if it was ever sent at all) was not addressed in the usual manner for the attention of Jean Pumford and Evelyn Welsh. The record clearly shows that the proposal would have found no favour with Jean but it might have been more welcome up at Milton of Leys.Was there intent to keep the community council in the dark? For evidence to support such an aspersion look at what happened to the community when they turned out in large numbers last Monday night to find out what went wrong with the consultation process. The Chair barred the public from asking any questions on this important issue. The chair exercised prejudice towards the aspirations of the land developer and the planning department. While the notification to Inverness South Community Council was sent out with no Recorded Delivery to Shonaid Bowie it seems alarming that the planning notice to other neighbours at Balvonie did go by Recorded Delivery, and attracted an immediate objection.

During the community council meeting last Monday night a record of a complaint was handed to the community policeman recording the preliminary facts of the matter to his police force. There is fresh evidence to tender now to the police, in the form of the letter from Jean Pumford dated 8th Dec, and the absence of a recorded delivery service in the process can only mean one of two things. Highland Council never ever posted the Consultation Letter at all, or the Chair at Inverness South received it and kept it a secret from the community council to help the developers. I shall draw this grave irregularity to the attention of the The Ministers, the Fair organisers and the media. The public should not have to tolerate such a corruption of a due planning process.

Your letter ended by suggesting that you could not see any justification for calling the matter in under the Notice of Referral procedure and from the rather false information that you have been thus far been fed by the planning department one might accord with that view. However, you now have very robust evidence that clearly shows you simply have got to exercise the Notice of Referral procedure without any further delay.

While you were reporting on the world wide interest in the proposed Highland Housing Fair that will destroy the green wedge at Balvonie of Inshes Inverness I was surprised that you failed to mention the interest of Northern Constabulary regarding alleged irregularities that have been reported in the preliminary planning process.

Not only have the police been asked to investigate but individual members of the local community have complained to the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman. The Ethical Standards Commission for Scotland, Arthur McCourt Chief Executive Highland Council, The Press Complaints Commission and MSP's

Demands to have the planning consent rescinded are founded on the recorded evidence that Inverness South Community Council, in whose area the development is proposed, were denied their statutory consultation time by Highland Council. The Public Notice for the scheme was advertised on 8th Dec 2006 and the community council immediately requested the statutory information and plans for the scheme. A second request was submitted on 18th Dec along with a formal objection based on local knowledge of the proposals. The information arrived by Recorded Delivery post marked 9th January 2007 a whole month late.

The planning department Report to the Highland Council planning committee is dated 12th January 2007, proving that Highland Council planners never intended to take public consultation on board from the community council. In a letter to Merkinch cc, Mr John Rennilson Director of Planning Highland Council advised that week ending 27th January 2007 was the last date for making representations. At the planning committee meeting no representations were tendered to councillors from any community councils yet I have copies of objections lodged by Inverness South cc 18th Dec. Balloch cc 23rd Jan. Stratherrick 24th Jan Kiltarlity 26th Jan Raigmore 26th Jan Inverness Civic Trust 26th Jan. Kirkhill, Westhill, Croy and Strathnairn , still to be verified, but evidence suggests that around ten objectors were omitted from the list that Highland Council tendered to the planning committee.

This irregularity has come to light from the Scottish Executive where it has been discovered that Highland Council misrepresented the number of objectors to the Executive by recording only objections from me, two from Milton of Leys Residents and one Balvonie resident.

Recorded evidence suggesting grave irregularities in this planning process has been offered to the police and the Scottish Executive in the form of the Recorded Delivery envelop post marked 9th Jan and also the letter Mr Rennilson sent to me on 25th Jan, when he rejected my claim that the Report to the planning committee was fundamentally flawed, incompetent, and should be withdrawn from the agenda. As we wait for police to decide what to do with the matter, Counsel Opinion is being sought towards gaining an interdict against this flawed planning process.

While waiting for your response, I have spoken to other members of the public and many people now believe that a pattern of irregularities is emerging from Highland Council planning department and recorded evidence is also now suggestin