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Dear Planner,
re Destroyer of Enterprise & Initiative your letter dated 10th December
I am in receipt of your letter dated 10th December. I reply more in sadness and distress, than anger. It is no coincidence that your letter asks for a reply in 14 days – your bureaucratic mind set cannot have considered the pressure that that request puts on your customers at this time, or indeed the rationale for any reply to any Council office which would arrive on Christmas Eve.
On the Day of Judgement when Our Creator asks ‘where have all the Entrepreneurs and Innovators gone’ I shall be able to answer with honesty and nearly 30 years of bitter experience, that they were destroyed, at their own expense, and by your planning department.
Your expertise in job destruction and innovation elimination has, over the many years that we have been involved together, been more successful than bombing. In both my life as an employer and my life as a preserver of the green belt I have found myself diametrically opposed with your good self at almost every turn. My side has always triumphed, but at serious expense, with many lost jobs & opportunities, and much misplaced effort.
I always wonder how different this world would look had there been one more of me and one less of you ? I like to think more akin to my road and less like your town centre, but I leave the final judgement to historians.
I was reminded when I received your most recent letter that the last time we corresponded on the environment it was you also accusing me then of having no planning permission for a three acre lake which had somehow come to your notice so long after its completion. I replied at once saying that our lake did have planning permission, that all negotiations were with one R. C. and that the planning permission was signed by another R. C. You chose not to give me the courtesy of any reply and after considerable delay, and in complete frustration, I sent all the correspondence to a local news paper. You said that you were distressed at my attitude at that time.
Well, I am distressed at your attitude on this issue and you may notice that I am not waiting on your decision as to whether or not you choose to reply before I take further action. Your department has written once and had a long conversation with my business partner. Two members of your department have visited the site and had a long conversation with our Estate Manager and you now seek further information from me before ‘taking a view’. Most Ratepayers would be amazed that you either need so much information, or that you have nothing better to do with your time and our money.
The pond in question is a dew pond well denoted on any Ordinance Survey map in enclosure no 1939 and certainly shown on my O/N map dated 1939 – just a few feet from our lane on its West side as you approach the Ford from the South. The work that you refer to cost less than ‘ 300 in total which included the hire of a machine and the grass seed to make the ground good – I did the job myself in 22 hours. There were no other materials used. How on earth your department can possibly imagine that that requires planning permission, or anything approaching it, baffles everybody.
The original dew pond was created presumably without planning permission by a higher authority even than yours. About 10 to 12 years ago I restored a natural flow of water to the dry pond, and most recently extended it into the barren piece of ground under the dreadful electricity pylon which specifically requires than ‘nothing grows under it’ – water provides the ideal maintenance free solution. I have done this work all on my land, at my expense and with a view to increasing the beauty of the area. My initiative allows the many walkers we attract down the lane to see nature in action without trespassing into its domain or onto my land. All the passers by have remarked how much better the area looks and I consider that my modest expenditure in time and money has been my best purchase this year, if not forever.
You can have no idea how your constant and incompetent interference in the efforts of others to create employment, wealth, innovation and a pleasant environment is so counterproductive.
It is you and your work which is dragging us all down. Please get your destroyer out of my dew pond.
All the best,
(all personal details removed to protect the wicked)
