Councillor claims Athletes’ Village is ‘turning into disaster’

Speaking at a recent planning committee of Birmingham City Council, Councillor Gareth Moore argued that the changes to the Athletes’ Village were so drastic that the council should be making a new planning application.

Among the range of alterations applied for by the council were the ability to replace a block of flats on plot two of the development with 18 town houses, as well as adding further apartments on plots eight and nine.

There were also changes to the parking provisions, with the outcome of all the changes that the site would fall short of the 6,500 places it had promised.

Instead of submitting a new application, the council applied for a variation of existing conditions, meaning the planning committee could pass the alterations without the need for a new application.

However Councillor Moore took exception to this, saying that the only reason a new application had not been put forward by the council was because it did not have enough time to submit one.

He said: “The Athletes’ Village certainly is turning into a Pandora’s Box. And it’s good to see what the £92 million overspend is going to be used for.

"I do have concerns that this is a whole range of condition variations which is substantially altering the proposals for the Athletes’ Village, and so why are we looking at amended conditions and not an amended planning application outright.

“These are substantial changes from how the Athletes’ Village was going to look when we last considered it. And I suspect the reason they are doing a variation of conditions is because there isn’t the time to do a full application.

“And the council is trying to bend the rules, effectively, to cover up its mistakes and deliver this on time. Which I still think won’t be the case.

“It does seem strange that we’re just looking at conditions that are making significant changes to the private element sector of it, putting additional housing in, removing car parking. These are substantial changes, this isn’t tweaking.

“This is far more substantial than what has been put forward, and given that the Athletes’ Village is turning into a complete disaster, quite frankly, we need to make sure that everything is done properly, or we’re going to have a situation where further conditions are going to need to be put forward at a later date. Because it’s been done once, it will probably happen again, the overspends will probably get worse. We need to get a grip on this, because the council quite clearly has not done so so far.”

Responding to accusations that the council was ‘bending the rules’, chairman of the planning committee Councillor Karen McCarthy said that it was completely within reason for a variation to be applied for, rather than a completely new planning application.

Responding to Councillor Moore, she said: “OK, you managed to get in a couple of mentions of the overspend, which is not a planning matter.

“And I have to say that on behalf of officers I rebut the allegation that the rules are being bent. As part of this agenda, it’s within the scope of what it’s set out as.”