J Mark Dodds says:
June 19th, 2011 at 8:03 pm

As for RCCG / gala bingo it’s just another hopeless case of the public being kept in the dark by an opaque planning process where there quite evidently is no real prospect of anything other than it becoming a church eventually — just like most other places in society it’s a case of money talks money gets. They can do what they want with impunity no matter what the planning law says, no matter how valid the objections, no matter that there is no need for the facility of MORE places of worship here when there is a decades long officially identified need for community amenity, exhibition and performance space. meeting rooms, hub office facilities and a cultural and social focus for the area. NO.

No common sense — not even worth everyone getting together to raise a business plan and the cash to buy out the church when their applications are eventually turned down — because they won’t be. No matter how badly put together the planning application is, no matter how much they lie with the information they put into it, no matter that they refurbish the place illegally without permission, no matter they carry out services illegally. NO, clearly all that is just tickety boo A-OK no problem.

On the other hand if you or I make a minor misdemeanour, like put out our rubbish on the wrong day, or park with a tyre on a double yellow or, in one instance with me, get a ticket while waiting for the pay and display machine to print out a permit, we get a hard cash fine and end up feeling hunted, hounded and persecuted in our own homes and on OUR streets.

It’s like pubco lala land. It sucks, it HAS to change but it won’t as long as we don’t do anything about it ourselves because we’re all too busy and too ground down by it all. Civil Society. This is not a civil society, it’s barely out of the dark ages.