The council has been ordered to hand the £225k Lyme Green scandal report over to the Express.
Cheshire East Council had repeatedly refused to release the independent report into the £1m planning fiasco, but must now make it public by January 14, 2014.
The order to disclose the report came from the Information Commissioner’s Office after an appeal for them to investigate the council’s refusal was filed by the Express.
The ICO says that the unreleased report should be published to help the public understand what happened and reassure them the council has learned its lessons from the fiasco.
Now we will finally see the independent report into alleged misconduct by the senior council officers involved in Lyme Green.
Some information contained within the DIP report will remain unpublished under confidentiality and disciplinary guidelines.
The council also has the opportunity to lodge an appeal against the ICO’s decision before January 7, 2014.
Leading councillors, as well as Lyme Green residents and campaigners, have said that the decision should finally answer questions of how more than £1m of their cash came to be wasted.
Celia Davies, chairwoman of the Lyme Green Residents’ Group, which fought the plans, said: “This is a good day for democracy.
“What I don’t understand is that Coun Michael Jones has always said that he wants to draw a line under Lyme Green, but they couldn’t do that until they tell the public what really happened.
“This result is the culmination of two years’ battling to get answers and hopefully now we will find out what really happened.”
Peter Yates, a Sutton resident and former head of planning at the now defunct Macclesfield borough council, said: “It has taken forever but we should finally find out some of what happened.
“I wonder whether Cheshire East will use this to become the transparent organisation they keep saying they will become.
“If you ask me whether we will see a new Cheshire East come out of this, I don’t think so.”
Coun Martin Hardy said that the findings were a chance for the council to learn from its mistakes.
He said: “It’s about time we found out. This is a step forward in the right direction, anything that can be done should be done to learn our lessons. Hopefully this is the final piece of that jigsaw.”
A Cheshire East Council spokesman said: “We have received a decision notice from the Information Commissioner’s Office. We are pleased the commissioner has accepted that a number of redactions need to be made to the report for a variety of reasons.
“At this early stage, we are minded to accept the findings of the commissioner and the leader of the council has given a strong commitment to openness and transparency on this issue.
“Due to the fact the full report is 100 pages long, the council previously published a version of the report to aide public understanding.
“However, it is likely a full version of the report will be made available once the recommended redactions have been agreed and a full and clear understanding of all the suggestions made.”
Read the full Independent Commissioner's Report below:
