PRESS RELEASE: PNGS response to investigation by Assurance Lincolnshire

Protect Newark’s Green Spaces (PNGS) welcomes the outcome of the investigation by Assurance Lincolnshire set out in its detailed audit report ‘Lessons Learnt. London Road Municipal Buildings’.

This report fully vindicates the case campaigners made against the scheme since its inception. The investigation found that Newark and Sherwood District Council (NSDC) had failed in a number of very serious ways, including:

due diligence; public engagement and consultation; robust decision-making practices; evidence of the need for the parking spaces; making a sound commercial case; consideration of the environmental impacts of the proposed scheme

All these matters were repeatedly put to NSDC by PNGS during our three-year campaign to save the Library Garden but sadly, we were not listened to.

We note that the report states that the current officers and some of the current members (elected councillors) were not in post at the time of the sale of the Old Municipal Building and the subsequent ill-thought-out deal. However, PNGS note that some members, who were the main drivers of the London Road Car Park Extension scheme, remain in post and have been fully involved since the inception of the project.

It is disappointing that the considerable evidence provided by PNGS in their submission to the Lincs Assurance investigation about NSDC's conduct during the final two months of the campaign was deemed out of its scope. This evidence covered, but was not limited to:

health and safety contraventions; the closing down of communication with the public; public statements by NSDC officers and members that were untrue; providing misleading information to contractors and the police which ramped up hostility towards peaceful protestors; unwarranted use of Notts Police time and resources.

In our view, NSDC's conduct undoubtedly made a difficult situation far worse than it needed to be and we echo the Chief Executive Officer’s sincere hope that ‘we never have a repeat of this situation’.

We urge all local councils - county, town and parish - to pay close attention to this Audit report and ensure that their members and officers meet the standards of governance and conduct the public expects of their elected bodies at all times.

We understand that the report will be presented and discussed at the next Audit and Governance Committee meeting on 27 July. PNGS representatives will be attending this meeting. We look forward to hearing the details of the lessons which have been learnt and the measures which have been put in place to improve standards and governance within NSDC. We expect that NSDC officers and members will use the meeting as an opportunity to publicly and sincerely apologise to council taxpayers across the district for their failures of governance and due diligence which have wasted so much of their money.

We also hope that PNGS campaigners and all our STOP THE CHOP supporters will receive a public apology at this meeting for the way they were treated by NSDC during the final two months of the campaign which caused a great deal of anxiety and distress across our community. PNGS are very proud of all our campaigners and supporters for the way they conducted themselves and came together as a peaceful, strong community, determined to stand firm and do the right thing while NSDC appeared to be ruthlessly trying to do the wrong thing. We would appreciate this being recognised at the meeting on 27th July.