28 April - Bexley Cabs. What’s going on?
A
call to Bexley’s Head of Planning revealed that applications by any councillor or
member of his family always goes before the Planning Committee for scrutiny, so
that means there is no real likelihood of Bexley Cabs, owned by the son of council deputy
leader Colin Campbell, getting special treatment because everything will be open
and above board. Well maybe not.
According to the head honcho, the application has been submitted by Ms. Dymphna Byrne
and the officer dealing with it says it’s not a change of use as the office was previously
a taxi office. That’s news to the owners of adjacent property but said officer has apparently
been out to check and the office is indeed kitted out as a taxi office. I wondered why
someone would have jumped that particular gun, now I can see the reason.
So who is Dymphna Byrne? The name seems to ring a bell; ah yes, it cropped up as part of the
Trip Adviser complaints
in January - though not specifically mentioned in the blog.
Update: The planning application correctly says it is a change of use, the
planning officer must have made a mistake.
As
you can see from this extract from 192.com, Mark Campbell and Dymphna Byrne
share an address. Click the image to see the page from which this is extracted.
And
the two of them run companies together and Mark Colin Campbell runs Bexley Cabs.
So if Mrs. Clark, Head of Planning, is correct, then for the application not to
mention Mark Campbell ,the owner of Bexley Mini Cabs Ltd and son of the
council’s deputy leader, looks fishy
doesn’t it? I expect she will be taking a closer look.
Click images to view the unedited documents.