Inquiry looms into controversial Plymouth regeneration

An independent inquiry into Plymouth City Council’s controversial Armada Way regeneration will focus on whether it carried out sufficient consultations and the financial implications of its actions. Three local government experts have been chosen to conduct the independent learning review into the council decision that led to the felling of more than 100 trees on Armada Way in March 2023.

The review will look closely at the decision, signed by the then Tory council leader Richard Bingley, to press ahead with the redevelopment scheme and the destruction of 129 trees. A court injunction stopped the work later that day, after 110 mature trees had been chopped down, and the scheme was later torn up with an entirely new project announced by Labour’s Tudor Evans when he took control of the council two months later.

Cllr Evans also ordered the independent review, which will not look at the legality of the decision or seek to blame anyone but will look at what can be learned and any improvements that can be made. The review can now begin after the conclusion of legal proceedings involving the council and action group Save The Trees of Armada Way (Straw).

The inquiry, which is expected to conclude within three months, will examine a raft of issues connected to the 2023 decision. It will study why “urgent” decision making procedures were used and the lack of an opportunity to “call in” the decision for examination by councillors.

The review panel of three experts will probe whether a sufficient consultation took place, and whether feedback was actually considered. It will look at the injunction, including what documentation was submitted, and the decision making by officers when project managing the scheme.

The review will also examine the impact on the environment and ask why an environmental impact assessment was not carried out before the decision to chop down the trees was made.

And it will consider the financial implications of the events of March 2023, including how much it has cost the council. Legal challenges have cost the authority thousands of pounds in legal bills and the cost of the new Armada Way scheme is, at more than £29m, a huge hike from the £12.7m cost of the planned original project.

The panel members are David Williams, former chief executive of Portsmouth City Council, Gosport Borough Council and Guildford Council; Sue Foster, former strategic director who has worked in local authorities including Hackney, Lambeth and Kensington and Chelsea; and Jeanette McGarry, monitoring officer at the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and West Lyndsey District Council.

They were chosen, in a process involving public sector professionals network Solace, and will be able to look at documents, including commercially sensitive and legally privileged ones, interview councillors and officers, and receive written submissions from the public. A report will be published which will be examined at a full council meeting.

Mr Williams, who will chair the review panel, said: “We are aware of the sensitivities around the felling of the trees on Armada Way and over the next three months will be looking at a raft of information. The review will cover the period from September 2022 until the decision was taken by the new administration to rescind the original decision taken under urgency procedure on March 24, 2023.

“We will consider the approach taken by the council in preparing the original decision, the decision-making processes themselves, the consultation process, the implementation of the decision and the financial implications of the events and circumstances arising from the decision. The purpose of the learning review is not to allocate blame or culpability, but more to understand what happened and why, so we can make sure that any improvements can be made in the future.

“We know that there will be groups and individuals that would like to give us their views as part of the learning review process and as soon as we have a process in place we will let people know. Our emphasis will be on learning for the future and that should be the focus of any representation.”

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