This Week’s News
3rd June 2006
Anker Valley - Tories Push It Through.
Well! That’s it. We always knew the Tories would bulldoze this through on the Local Plan. But what we hadn’t counted on was their gall in doing it. At Thursday’s Full Council extraordinary meeting they cobbled together a motion for the Local Plan that included a piece that stopped any other amendment being discussed. What’s that you say! How on earth can they be allowed do that??? Well that’s what we (myself and the Labour group) said ..... yet do it they still did! I don’t know about the Labour group but I intend to put in a formal complaint).
Anyway we all recognised that the Local Plan had to be adopted by 21st July but the amendment I would have put (which at one point even seemed to have been accepted by the Mayor) would still have allowed that 21st July deadline to be met. But it would have allowed the Anker Valley scheme to be put on the back-boiler for further consideration and public consultation. Now the Tories have shown their true colours and - as I said at the Council - they have proved they were nothing more than lobby folder for the Developers - despite their telling people at the elections that they too “opposed this Anker Valley development”.
Feel like objecting now? Well you still can - but it has to be on legal grounds and not that you just don’t like the decisions made. Oh - and it would help if you had a spare £10,000 or so!!
Useful site - Save Our Anker Valley.
Why The Anker Valley didn’t have to be pushed through can be found in this letter
Politically On The Council
The Tories New Leader
There’s a new energy in the Tamworth Tory party. Not one that is properly directed yet I fear - but certainly under the new Leadership of the young Jeremy Oates the Tories will be a very different Tory party to that which existed under previous leader Ron Cook. Jeremy is intelligent and versatile. He understands things like the constitutional niceties and can make very sensible points - on the spur of the moment too - about any issue under discussion.
He’s backed up by a much younger team which includes Cllr's Danny Cook and Rob Pritchard. Judging by the local papers letter pages, and photo stories, they also well know how to take advantage of the media. I remember when I was their age being able to deliver 1000s of leaflets a day and shinning up and down lampposts at night during elections. These boys are going to be tough to beat. I just wonder if my experience can be enough?
The side bit
NOT GUILTY!
Amazing how doing your best for people so often seems to land you in trouble.
Anyway last year our Local Standards committee decided that Cllr Nigel Brindley had broken the councillors code of conduct.
I was so concerned at the way this decision had been reached that I produced a several pages long “minority dissenting opinion” which was subsequently signed by two Labour Councillors too. Cllr Brindley was able to use that in his successful appeal to the Adjudication Board. (Their decision here)
For our pains we were reported ourselves to the Standards Board of England for various things - like misconduct, breach of confidentiality, misuse of privileged info etc.. I have to be very careful here. Although the summery for the decision is publicly available here, the whole decision appears to be confidential (why???). Like who made the complaint!!!
Anyway - after 6 months or so the Standards Board has decided that not only did we do nothing wrong - but what we did do was motivated by genuine concern.
NOT GUILTY!
But by such means it seems they try to wear us down!
