Being perfectly honest, criticising Cheshire East is just too easy.

It seems no matter what the beleaguered council does, it just can't get it right.

The litany of problems, miss-steps, controversies and lack of self-awareness is staggering.

And now we have the unedifying sight of councillors being taken to task – ever so gently but ever so publicly – by their own officers.

The problem this time is with councillors who sit on the planning committee and the decisions they make.

Last week, David Malcolm, the councils planning manager, told the strategic planning board that committee members should make sure their decisions are made on ‘solid grounds’ when they reject planning applications.

To be honest, I would have thought that was a given. Why, you may ask, would anyone tasked with making those planning decisions do anything other than stick by the planning rules.

According to Local Democracy Reporter Stephen Topping, figures released last week show that in 2017-18, 63 per cent of appeals that followed Cheshire East Council committee decisions were allowed in court – compared to just 22 per cent of decisions made by officers.

And that figure soared to 75 per cent of appeals from committee decisions in the first quarter of 2018-19.

Mr Malcolm told the meeting: "When members are looking to perhaps overturn an officer’s recommendation – and there are times when members have refused something that has been dismissed at appeal as well – it’s just making sure the reasons are on solid grounds.”

I've seen this political decision-making on more than one occasion, often when the application is controversial but when there are no planning law reasons to reject it.

It seems councillors just don't want to take responsibility for uncomfortable or controversial decisions.

Take, for example, an application to build something like an energy from waste plant (otherwise known as an incinerator) or an application for a fracking site.

You know as well as I do residents will be bitterly opposed and will organise and protest – and we have plenty of evidence for that.

But you also know planning officers will go through every last detail before making their recommendation.

Yet no matter how lawful a controversial application, local politicians will never risk the ire of their voters and will always refuse to give the go ahead.

The outcome is always a costly appeal and sometimes a very expensive public enquiry.

Basically, your councillors abdicate their responsibility and hand off the decision (and therefore the blame) to someone else – political expediency.

Now it looks like Cheshire East councillors are going against the recommendations of their own planning officers and are turning down more applications than they should without good reason.

And as ever, it is the council tax payers of Cheshire East who are picking up the bill when an appeal goes to court.

When will the good people of Cheshire East actually get the council it deserves, I wonder?n When I was a little boy, Wednesday night's tea was always a 'Bally Anne Day' meal.

  • I have no idea what the origin of Bally Anne was but I knew what its effects were.

Bally Anne Day was the day before pay day, the day of the week when money was tight and my mum had to make do and mend – and that extended to what we had to eat.

Basically, a Bally Anne meal was usually frugal and was made up of anything we happened to have in the house.

And yet, one of those meals has stuck with me into adulthood – much to the amusement of my colleagues.

I don't think it will ever appear on the menu in a posh restaurant (unless it's trying to be ironic) but mashed potato mixed with grated cheese and fried onions, topped with more grated cheese and sliced tomatoes and grilled (then used as a filling for a sandwich) is still one of my favourite meals.

If anyone can let me know the origins of the phrase Bally Anne Day, I'd be delighted to hear your suggestions.

And in these times of austerity, let me know what your favourite make do and mend meal is.