At home, we have a battle with the nearby hospital, who seem to think that it is okay to stick a noisy 'temporary' building right at the end of our road. I write a long, tedious four-page letter and we actually talk to all our neighbours properly for the first time.

Naturally there is a certain amount of moral outrage, ranting and embarrassing meetings with the developers who know full well that they are going to screw us over. They almost succeed in persuading/bullying the people right next door to the development to give up, but I persevere in our defence and we all get our letters in on time.

The Planning Officer's report addresses many of our chief concerns (save the most vital one - that this is the WRONG place) and recommends that permission is agreed with conditions.

The meeting is one of those affairs where you sit about and then weep while a cowardly and ignorant group of Fat Councillors shuffle their feet and mumble apologetically because they have clearly been told that they have to pass this one,1 regardless of how crazy and irresponsible it is.

So The 3vil Developer stands up and makes a speech about how important the hospital is, how the Council have already given permission2 and this should just be a formality, how although they have spent six months digging up the road and clearing the site it has nothing to do with this building, honest. The panel sit there and nod seriously.

The first application is a single-storey portacabin in a school and the committee whinge and moan and eventually make up 'Planning Reasons' to defer it, telling the applicant to go away and come up with a better location, rejecting it due to 'overshadowing'. I get up there and say my bit. I point out that for consistency, they can't say that this is not overshadowing, or that a better place is not available (which is the real crux of my argument). I go over my three minutes and the Chair mumbles something about being 'lenient', but as I am the only representative for two streets I think I deserve it.

Here are some choice quotes from the 'extensive' 'discussion', in which only 3 of the 12 members of the committee actually said anything at all:

Chair: Why is the delivery bay right next to the garden fence? That seems a bit stupid to me.

Planning Officer: Because it has to be there.

Chair: Oh, right.

Bod 1: So what about this other place then? I mean, this site is right on the edge - it doesn't look central to me, why can't it be over there?

Planning Officer: Because 'they' said it wouldn't work there, it's too 'circuitous'3. Anyway, we're not here to talk about where it SHOULD be...

Bod 2: So is everything going to be enclosed in acoustic containers?

Planning Officer: No, no they don't say anything about that.

Bod 2: I think maybe we should think about it, then.

Planning Officer: I feel really sorry for the people who are going to have to live right next to this.

Chair: Yeah, (looking at me) sorry about that, all in agreement? (all the silent, shuffling, embarrassed and miserable Councillors raise their hands) you will have to have this building for five years.

In my job I clerk meetings about student results in which serious decisions are made and there is every possible care taken to ensure consistency across the board, as well as consider cases on their own individual merits. Some people gain, some lose out, because a precedent has been set in another award that means we cannot in all good conscience raise or lower the grade, regardless of how much we want to.

In the first case, the Committee refused permission for the school because none of them WANTED to allow it. They then made up 'Planning Reasons' that directly contradicted and ridiculed the decision they would make later on our building. Is this a fair measure of consistency in the system?

This afternoon, some woman from the Evening Pest calls me up and asks me what happened. I try to be civil and honest and fair - stressing that we are in favour of the long-term plan for the hospital, that we have actually won a significant victory in this case as the conditions that have been recommended are pretty strict. I beg her to withhold my name from the article, but it's just a bland piece of filler and maybe I should have had a proper rant instead.

But we're just in the could'a would'a should'a period now, where you wish things could be different, you wish you'd said something more pertinent, something that they would have paid attention to - but I don't know what that would be, apart from I have your children....

• 1. Or have been paid or bullied themselves by the developers.
• 2. For the MAIN bit, not this!
• 3. The current location is 'circuitous', this is a stupid and unbelievably flawed argument, yet these muppets don't even question it