Help hit Gladman where it hurts!

AudlemOnline has been receiving very useful information from other groups and campaigners around the country in villages and towns fighting the curse of Gladman Developments.

Gladman are the company of speculative developers that are looking to gain planning permission to build 120 homes at Little Heath, although this seems to have moved to 95 properties in recent Cheshire East documentation.

Campaigners have told us that The Cooperative Bank have extensive interests in the Gladman Group of Companies, having entered in to some sizeable agreements to fund various parts of Gladman's expansion plans. This is an extract from the Cooperative Bank's website:

Gladman Developments
'We feel that the relationship that we have with the team at the Co-op is best summed up by the Bank's own strap lines of "Ethical" and "Socially Responsible" Banking. From our experience this philosophy extends to the handling of its customers. We work with the bank as a trusted partner, knowing that our business model is understood by the team handling our account and that there is a detailed knowledge of the sectors we operate in. The trust is a two way process that is engendered through a stable relationship and open honest communication. From our experience this is not something that can be taken for granted with all competing banks."
Jon Shepherd, FD, Gladman Developments

Writing to the bank

Normally, we would suggest the most effective way to express your opinion about a bank and its operations is to write to the chief executive. However, The Co-operative Bank is busy at present trying to reassure its customers that it will not need a multimillion-pound taxpayer bailout after its debt was downgraded to junk status and its chief executive suddenly quit a few days ago.

Given the seriousness of the downgrade, it may well be that the Cooperative Bank will have to scale back on some of its activities – ideally funding Gladman – as it needs, on its own admission, to raise more capital after some hefty losses.

If you want to hurt Gladman where it hurts, a letter to your branch, if you care to write and are a customer, may in these circumstances be a better option. This, for information, is the letter our campaigner contact has written to the bank.

Alternatively, you could write to their HQ:
The Cooperative Group,
POBox 53,
Manchester,
M11 2WE

Campaigner's letter to Cooperative Bank

"As a former employee of the Co-operative Wholesale Society and having worked within the Co-operative Bank, I am somewhat surprised that your organisation wishes to promote its relationship with Gladman and indeed am surprised that you have a relationship at all, given your various social responsibility, sustainability and ethical policies.

"Gladman Developments is a solely for profit land development empire. Its own web site proudly states that it seeks to gain planning permissions for its clients on green field sites in the fastest possible time-scale.

"Up and down the country Gladman are engaged in actively riding rough shod over local decision making and are exploiting the current turmoil in the planning process to maximum benefit for themselves. Their modus operandi is to use a templated approach, recognising from the outset that their plans will be refused by parish, town and district authorities.

"They further simply ignore the significant distress of the local communities impacted by their proposals. They appear to rely on "planning loopholes" to over-turn the wishes/decisions of Local Communities and Authorities at Appeal.

"A simply search of the web site of the Planning Inspectorate reveals how many appeals Gladman Companies have lodged and their own website boasts a selection of those Appeals which they have won against strong Community opposition.

"In the case of Stroud, Gladman are actively progressing an Appeal against a decision by Stroud District Council to Refuse Planning Permission on a green field site in the Slad Valley (as famously described by Laurie Lee). Gladman are even going so far as to bully my elderly mother in order to progress their plans.

"Malpas, Audlem, Leonard/Kings Stanley, Nantwich, Whittlesey, Bloxham are just some of the other locations getting exposure to the "curse of Gladman".

"Whilst taking advantage of the current changes to the Planning System is not unusual, Gladman have been particularly aggressive in targeting green land on the edge of communities, in the case of Stroud deliberately choosing a sensitive site and ignoring the obvious distress of the local community (with over 1,500 public objections to their plans received and a unanimous rejection by the Local Authority, Natural England, English Heritage, CPRE and others).

"Indeed they ignore totally the best practice described in the NPPF where collaboration and early engagement is encouraged. Their sole aim is to get to Appeal as soon as possible.

"I am sure that the Co-operative Bank does not wish to become deluged by letters from those impacted by Gladman, so I am asking for a swift and considered response to the points I have raised and that your organisation makes use of your influence to encourage better behaviours from a wealthy organisation, which could be using the money you have loaned it to much greater socio-economic good (in collaboration with Local Communities).
I would be happy to discuss further.
Kind regards
Simon Pitt"

For those interested in keeping up-to-date with Gladman developments we have created a special Gladman index in the newsroom. You access it by clicking the Gladman banner on the homepage. To go there now click here.

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.