Eight and a half minutes of chaos

THE final eight and a half minutes of Thursday’s planning meeting are almost too toe-curling to watch, as councillors charged with making important decisions about the future of the historic Lincoln’s Inn in Holborn reached the voting stage.

There’s quite a few planning applications relating to the proposed overhaul of the Inn, and councillors were aggrieved that the process had moved to a show of hands without all of their queries being answered. We’ve only got seven minutes left, they were repeatedly warned.

Cue, an irritated exchange between Camden’s chair of planning Heather Johnson and her Labour party colleague Sue Vincent, Claire-Louise Leyland telling the room that incomplete minute-taking led to a school being built with the wrong colour brick, Flick Rea looking confused about what they are actually voting on and a disillusioned Stephen Stark being told he’s too late to ask a long question about soft landscaping. The end result of this real life parody of local government? The plans are coming back for another chew at a future meeting.

Eight and a half tetchy minutes of confusion as councillors vote on plans for Lincoln’s Inn. https://t.co/8RldkHqa09

— Richard Osley (@RichardOsley) November 9, 2015