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31st December 2025

Formal Complaint to Monitoring Officer

Dear Monitoring Officer,

I am writing to raise a formal complaint of maladministration concerning the failure to comply with, and enforce, a Sport England–related planning condition attached to the Vale View School development.

This complaint is made in the public interest and is supported by documentary and factual evidence, which I will attach, demonstrating that the requirements of the relevant planning condition have not been met in practice.

1. The Sport England Planning Condition

As you will be aware, Sport England raised objections to the Vale View School development during the planning process. Those objections were withdrawn only on the basis of a planning condition requiring the provision of sports facilities with secured community use.

Such conditions are standard where playing fields or recreational land are lost or impacted and are intended to ensure that:

  • sporting facilities are provided to an appropriate standard; and
  • those facilities are genuinely available for community use, not solely for the school.

The condition therefore formed a material consideration in the granting of planning permission.

2. Evidence of Non-Compliance

Despite the passage of many years since the school opened:

  • I have contacted Vale View School directly to ask what sporting facilities are available for public or community use.
  • I was informed that no such facilities are available to the public.
  • I have been unable to locate any:
    • Community Use Agreement,
    • published access arrangements,
    • booking system,
    • pricing information, or
    • Council-managed scheme (e.g. Active Stockport) relating to community access at the site.

In short, there is no evidence that the community use element of the Sport England condition has ever been implemented.

Photographic evidence and supporting documents will be attached.

3. Enforcement and Governance Failure

If the Sport England condition has not been discharged, varied, or complied with, then the Council has:

  • granted planning permission on the basis of a condition that has not been honoured;
  • failed to monitor compliance with that condition; and
  • failed to take enforcement action to secure the public benefit that justified the permission.

If the condition was formally discharged or varied, I request confirmation of:

  • when this occurred,
  • on what evidential basis,
  • and how secured community use was deemed to have been satisfied.

4. Improper Characterisation of Scrutiny as “Vexatious”

I am aware that previous attempts to raise issues relating to planning compliance at this site have been dismissed as “vexatious”. That characterisation is inappropriate and unsustainable.

This complaint:

  • concerns a specific, identifiable planning condition;
  • raises a yes/no question of compliance;
  • is supported by direct enquiry with the school and absence of public-facing evidence; and
  • relates to a matter of public interest, namely the loss and replacement of sports provision.

Persistent attempts to establish whether a planning condition has been complied with do not constitute vexatious behaviour, particularly where the Council has failed to provide a clear answer.

5. Wider Pattern of Maladministration

This matter cannot be viewed in isolation. It follows the same pattern as other issues I have raised, including:

  • the deliberate under-provision of school places despite known rising birth rates;
  • failure to enforce woodland and visual amenity protections;
  • and retrospective attempts to manage consequences rather than address known non-compliance.

In each case, evidence-based public concern has been resisted rather than examined.

6. Matters for the Monitoring Officer

I therefore ask you, in your statutory role, to consider:

  1. Whether the Sport England planning condition at Vale View School has been complied with.
  2. Whether enforcement action should have been, or should now be, taken.
  3. Whether failures in monitoring and enforcement amount to maladministration.
  4. Whether the handling of this issue raises governance concerns requiring formal intervention.

I would be grateful for confirmation of how this complaint will be assessed and what steps you propose to take.

Yours sincerely,

Sheila Oliver
Editor, The Romiley Gazette