Kitelands Recreation Ground Lights - breach of planning conditions again!!

On Monday 2nd December 2013 at dusk the lights came on over Kitelands. They were switched off on 22nd May 2013 as Biggleswade Town Council had failed to comply with the terms of the Planning Consent since early October 2012.

On Monday the lights remained on until 10.45 pm and were on at 6.00am in the morning.

The terms of the planning consent are:

“The lighting hereby permitted shall at no time be switched on between the hours of 8.00 pm to 7.00 am”

The lights being on at 6.00 am and going off at 10.45 continued that week.

On Thursday 5th December 2013 I emailed the Town Clerk, Biggleswade Town Council & copied it to Councillor Hazel Ramsay, Mayor and Steven Watkins who had tried in previous years to address this issue.

Having been switched off again for the Summer, on Monday afternoon 2nd December 2013 the lights came on over Kitelands Recreation Ground. They remained on until well after 10.00pm and came on again well before 7.00am on the Tuesday 3rd December 2013.

As you know The Town Council has been in breach of the Planning Conditions, regarding the times for at least the last three years. Every year the remedy has been to switch them off.

In view of this, I do not intend to enter into another drawn out exchange of correspondence but will register a complaint with Central Bedfordshire Planning Enforcement.

email to Central Bedfordshire Planning Enforcement:

I am writing to you as you have been involved in this in the past.

As part of the planning application (MB/01/00869)  approved in December 2001, one of the conditions applied was that :

The lighting hereby permitted shall at no time be switched on between the hours of 8.00 pm to 7.00 am

June 2010 was the first time I brought a breach of those conditions to the attention of Planning Enforcement. Since then Biggleswade Town Council  have been in breach of the conditions every year, but never resolve the problem, they just turn the lights off. Well they have turned them on again and are  in breach of the conditions again as the lights are currently on in the evening until well after 10.00pm and they come on well before 7.00am.

I have advised Biggleswade Town Council that I am registering a complaint with yourselves.

I attach a summary of the history of this complaint and trust you will pursue this with the Council.

This was the response from the Biggleswade Town Clerk on Friday 6th December 2013:

For your information the lights at kitelands have been tampered with and the fact that they came on Monday was not down to Town Council.

We now have our electrician looking at the lights.

I have no comment to make on the remainder of your e mail.

After the Town Council Electrician “looked” at the lights on the Friday, they were on from dusk to dawn from Friday night (6th December 2013) and during the hours of darkness over the weekend. It appears that the time switch had been disabled but no account had been taken of the light & dark sensors.

I understand that someone was looking at them again on Monday 9th December 2013 and they went off at 8.00 pm that night, but on Tuesday morning, 10th December the lights were on before 6.00 am.

Also on the 10th December 2013, I had two emails from CBC Planning Enforcement:

Thank you for bringing this to my attention again and I am sorry that you have had the need too.

I am already on the case as the matter was raised last week by another member of the public.

I can confirm that I spoke with BTC last Wednesday and told them to sort this out.

I have not been advised that this is still happening and so I believe this has once again been resolved.  Please do let me know if the lighting is still coming on outside of the approved hours and I will take it up with them this time by way of a formal letter.

AND later that day:

I received a further email from a resident yesterday to say that the lighting still remains an issue.

Just to let you know that I have sent a strongly worded letter to the Town Council for them to address this matter.  I have asked that they do this as soon as possible and no later than the 15th of December 2013.

I am hoping that they will re-set any timer used and that the matter will be resolved once again.

All during the week the lights were on at 6.00am (in breach of the conditions) but were off at 8.00 pm.

On Friday, Saturday & Sunday nights (13th /14th & 15th December 2013), the lights stayed on all night!!!!!!!!!!

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