Labour smears: setting the record straight
Politics, people say, is a dirty game. When it comes to political discourse in Runnymede, however, nothing could usually be further from the truth. In the Council chamber, both Conservative and opposition councillors work together to move beyond petty point-scoring and deliver for local residents.
Sadly, Englefield Green Labour’s candidates Sebastian Michnowicz and Roxanne Mashari have violated this spirit by distributing two of the most outrageously inaccurate and misleading political leaflets I have ever come across.
Here’s are but a few of the inaccuracies contained in their leaflets…
► 1. Sebastian claims to be “at the back of the churchyard in Wick Lane” surveying what appears to be… a development on Blays Lane!
► 2. Sebastian pledges to work to “re-open the Queen Elizabeth Hospital”. I am not aware of the existence of a “Queen Elizabeth Hospital”. Does he mean the former day care centre, Queen Elizabeth House? Assuming he does, he speaks of his desire to turn the building into a “youth centre”. Sebastian is missing the fact that the Corby Drive Youth Centre is situated only a few hundred metres away and, following gutsy hard work by Cllrs Marisa Heath and Mike Kusneraitis, has recently secured a new three year lease and £5,000 grant for new ICT facilities.
► 3. Roxanne is severely critical of the Borough Council’s provision of lighting in the village, with Sebastian claiming that “Conservatives have done nothing to improve safety provisions in the area”. Pictured on Roxanne’s leaflet is a photograph of the footpath close to Ilex Close – the same footpath for which Cllr Marisa Heath has secured funding for the installation of improved lighting in the coming months. We work to improve the safety for all local residents at all hours of the day and night. In terms of improving student safety in the village, all six Englefield Green councillors attend regular meetings with members of Royal Holloway’s senior management team and Student Union President Joff Manning to discuss how we can better work together. The new Safer Runnymede Control Centre in the new Civic Offices complex (the construction of which is opposed by both Roxanne and Sebastian) will allow us to greatly expand our CCTV coverage in the village.
► 4. As a councillor, Sebastian wants to “appoint three Police Community Support Officers” in Englefield Green East ward. Quite apart from the fact the Borough Council has no power to implement such a plan, such a high number of PCSOs per head of population would mean that Englefield Green East would have more Police coverage than either Brixton or Peckham.
► 5. Sebastian alleges that your Conservative councillors were in some way negligent in taking “action to prevent the closure” of the Victoria Street Post Office. This is an area in which the Borough Council has no power whatsoever. That said, it is vital that the village has a Post Office and your six Conservative councillors Englefield Green are actively assisting Jan and Bunny, the owners of ‘Sohi’ on Bond Street in their application to take on the Post Office franchise.
► 6. Roxanne claims that your Englefield Green councillors “barely hold any surgeries that give local residents the opportunities to express their views or seek advice” and she will “hold regular surgeries once a month”. Well, if any resident wishes to come to our surgery on the second Saturday of the month at 11am at the Village Hall on Harvest Road, they are more than welcome!
► 7. Roxanne speaks of her desire to “campaign for more bicycle paths”. Firstly, the provision of cycle paths is an issue for the County Council. Secondly, the County Council has recently funded an excellent new cycle path leading alongside Egham Hill, easily connecting the village to local amenities in Egham.
► 8. Both Sebastian and Roxanne allege that the Borough Council has spent £23,000,000 on a new development to replace our existing dilapidated Civic Offices. I have no idea where this figure came from. Where too did the suggestion that the building is “£12,000,000 over budget” come from? The total building cost is £16,500,000 of which £3,500,000 will be met by Surrey County Constabulary with the remaining £13,000,000 by the Borough Council. The land the current Civic Offices is situated on will be sold for a new housing development (including a significant number of affordable homes) with a large majority of the £13,000,000 cost to the Borough Council of the new offices being recouped by the profits from the sale of this land.
The present offices were constructed in 1968 and were given a shelf-life of 25 years. They have now been in use for 40 years! The estimated cost of bringing the building up an acceptable standard as a place of work for our staff is estimated at up to £6,500,000! The new offices will not only be of minimal cost to taxpayers but will also conform to the highest possible environmental standards and incorporate the modern ICT infrastructure necessary to continue improving local services. Sebastian and Roxanne are correct to suggest that the opening of the building is behind schedule, yet have neglected to mention that the Borough Council’s contract with developers Willmot Dixon means that the Council has been compensated to the tune of £11,000 per week since the developers slipped behind their scheduled completion date of December 10th. In order to avoid any unnecessary costs to taxpayers, the Borough Council has refused to take possession of the buildings until all construction problems were eliminated, meaning that residents can expect the buildings to be of the very highest quality.
I apologise for taking a considerably more party political tone than I have traditionally taken on this Blog but I feel it is important that I set the record straight and respond to Labour’s misleading and dishonest smears.
April 27, 2008 at 1:01 pm
As a student living in Englefield Green East, I for one am glad such under-hand yet predictable tactics from the Labour candidates have been brought to light. The local Conservative team better serve the interests of residents; with focus on their actual concerns rather than simply playing pathetic party politics.
April 27, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Perhaps it comes down to simple ignorance, since one of the candidates in question has been a student in the area for a mere 1 1/2 years. How can they be expected to know these things? It’s a joke.
April 27, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Impressive rebuff. It remains to be seen whether those leaflets (which make as little light as possible that these two individuals are Labour candidates) will boost their vote. I would consider the merits of posting a (preferably glossy color) leaflet of your response around Englefield Green, where so far I’ve only seen election paraphernalia for Labour and UKIP. Even I take it as something of an affront when the Tories presume my vote and don’t deign to court it.
April 27, 2008 at 2:55 pm
excellent response to the uninformed inaccurate dribble that both of these misinformend candidates have posted, although you have failed to point out that the independant auditors have also said that RBC is one of the best run council’s in the UK,I would also like to acknowledge the superb efforts of local resident Mr Scott for his part in the saving of the youth club that is not under the control of RBC.
The people of Runnymede are well aware of how Labour performs and i am confident the next elections results will answer all of their questions, I for one am more than happy to be judged by what has been achieved.
April 27, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Labour are peddling similar scaremongering stories in Swindon too - quite simply they have nothing to offer. I am sure that you will be fine on May 1st!
April 28, 2008 at 9:20 am
Dear Ed,
The Conservative Councillors certainly dont take your vote for granted. It is a question of timing - do you push out election material early with the fear that it will have been consigned to the bin before Election Day or leave it until later in the campaign. By now you should have recieved a 4 page Conservative manifesto on either Hugh Meares or Marisa Heath plus a copy of the Conservatives In Touch news update, another 4 page colour leaflet. We have distributed 4000 in the village, if we have missed you then please reply and I will personally drop them around to you
Patrick Roberts
April 28, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Dan,
In the 25th February issue of The Founder, the Royal Holloway’s independent students’ newspaper you wrote, “…we Conservatives warmly welcome both the contribution they [Royal Holloway Labour Students] will make to political discourse in the Borough and the competition they will provide at the ballot box.” Now that Roxanne and I have distributed our campaign leaflets, you don’t seem too pleased.
If you think this is a dirty political smear campaign by Labour, then I think you should direct your focus at the Chertsey St. Ann’s ward, where UKIP have printed pictures of a rather worse-for-wear Conservative candidate, Chris Chapman. Enjoying the occasional pint or ten myself, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, despite our being on opposite sides of the political fence.
That is an example of dirty campaigning. What is happening in Englefield Green is healthy political campaigning and if you think that Roxanne and I have published ‘two of the most outrageously inaccurate and misleading political leaflets [you] have ever come across’, then you would do well to give credence to my rebuff of your remarks and maybe read some of Boris Johnson’s London Mayor Campaign material:
1) With regard to my surveying the 39-house development in Blays Lane but publishing the development as being on Wick Lane – this a genuine error. As embarrassing as it might be, it is the side-effect of working long hours revising for end-of-year physics exams, as part of my degree. I don’t think that the error is really that important – it seems everyone I have spoken to, while canvassing, knows what I’m taking about: most referred to it as the ‘land at the back of the churchyard the council sold to a private developer’, or words to that effect. Making mistakes is part of being a human, so I make no apology for this error, at what is a very stressful time for me.
2) In pledging to re-open the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, I am referring to the Queen Elizabeth House, which on my copy of the A-Z Master Atlas of Greater London has a small blue circle next to it with a white letter ‘H’ in it – checking the key to the map, in order to rule out the possibility that it could refer to some helipad I am unaware of, it is in fact, marked as a hospital. Indeed, that was the building’s function: providing day care services to elderly on the ground floor and respite services on the upper floor until you and your Conservative cronies on the council decided that the people of Englefield Green, who used it, weren’t worth the money and closed it. What a waste it is, that the building is now standing empty, serving no purpose other than symbolising the public service cuts people normally associate with Tory councils.
I suppose I could have called it the Queen Elizabeth House Hospital, but that seems a little contrived and the extra printing could have caused ‘Old Faithful’, the Labour Office printer, to burst into flames. In referring to it as just the ‘Queen Elizabeth House’, residents I campaigned to may have not known what I was referring to as the building has been closed a while now and was generally only used by the elderly.
So far you have managed to pick up on a wrong road and the reference to a day care centre as a ‘Hospital’, instead of ‘House’. Is this your idea of political discourse? You have made no mention of the people of Blays Lane who are going to have to endure the sheer drudgery of all the traffic that will flow to and from the 39-house development. What about them? What about the increase in noise and pollution that will result? What about the risk to youngsters going to the primary schools on the junction of Bagshot Road and Corby Drive? Do you seriously think the development is a good idea? What about the elderly who have to be ferried by bus to Egham, to access day care services which were once ’round the corner from them?
As for my purported ‘desire’ to turn QEH into a youth centre – I merely cited that as an example of what the building could be used for. The youth centre was not a hard and fast pledge. Did you miss the line: ‘…opening the upper floor, previously used as a respite centre, to the wider community…’, referring to a use that could be decided by residents by way of a consultation? As for the Corby Drive Youth Centre, you must be referring to the concrete outbuilding behind an ugly tall fence that resembles a bomb shelter someone forgot to demolish at the end of hostilities in 1945. Is it any wonder that youngsters and teenagers engage in anti-social behaviour when the alternative is spending time in a pseudo-gaol? You will, no doubt inform me that the Youth Centre is the responsibility of Surrey County Council (and therefore nothing to do with you). I therefore urge you to pass on my comments to Cllr Marisa Heath with a view to making the place more habitable and presentable for the benefit of everybody in the community, instead of just passing the buck on.
With regard to the £5,000 grant for new ICT facilities – I will deal with that when I go on to discuss lighting issues.
3) Lighting: the issue students and young people in the area feel most strongly about. You refer to the footpath near Ilex Close, a picture of which appears in Roxanne’s leaflet stating that, ‘…Cllr Marisa Heath has secured funding for the installation of improved lighting in the coming months.’ For a start, in order to be able to install ‘improved’ lighting, there has to be some lighting to improve on in the first place: there is none. Secondly, I feel I should draw your attention to a comment you posted in the Facebook group ‘Petition for the improvement of safety in Englefield Green alleys’ where, on the 9th November 2007 (that’s right, nearly six months ago) you wrote:
‘Following representations from myself, Cllr Mike Kusneraitis and County Councillor Marisa Heath, the issue of lighting along the alleyway was brought to the County Council’s Local Area Committee last month where it was agreed by Councillors that lighting be provided for the alleyway, subject to consultation with local residents.
The money is on the table and the lighting will be provided shortly - before Christmas, I hope.’
This is a link to that page, in case your memory needs jogging: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=7368387745&topic=3212
We are now nearing the end of April and there is no lighting and no evidence that any work is to be carried out, and now you’ve just said that the improved lighting will be installed in the ‘coming months’. How long are we going to have to wait for some lampposts? How many more attacks must the community be subjected to before you stand up and take some responsibility instead of fobbing off vulnerable people, particularly young women, with promises you can’t keep?
While Facebook might be the outlet for all manner of social networking nonsense, you, as a Councillor, have the responsibility to tell the truth to people pleading for you to address the problem. Some of the students who are members of the group have offered to help cut back the foliage to facilitate the installation of the lights, such is their desperation. So, Dan, what are you going to do about it?
You’ve secured a £5,000 grant for new ICT facilities at the Corby Drive Youth Centre and money for lighting on the Ilex Close/Blays Lane footpath yet nothing other than that seems to happening – it just proves that when it comes to blowing your Conservative trumpet, you are very loud; but when it comes to acting on your pledges, you haven’t got any trousers on.
4) If I am elected, I may still have no power to appoint Police Community Support Officers, but I will be in a position of authority where I will be able to poke, prod, hassle and harangue the relevant authority to have PCSOs appointed. Your comparison to police coverage in Brixton and Peckham seems hardly relevant in a rural village, don’t you think? I feel I should also add that the electorate is not interested in your mindless quoting of statistics, but in the harsh reality of life: a lady I spoke to on Middle Hill complained that a friend’s house had been burgled and the police at Egham where ‘uncontactable’. Her friends returned after a security company had called them, to find lights still switched on and doors wide open. She thought the appointment of PCSOs was a good idea, as did another elderly lady living in Barnway whose car, as well as her son’s car had been broken into – on their driveway.
Does Englefield Green East have to have the crime rate of Brixton or Peckham before the issue is addressed? Surely prevention by working to provide a visible police force is better than cure?
5) Despite your comments, I still consider the Conservative council negligent in not preventing the Victoria Street Post Office closure. The Conservatives on Essex County Council seem to have come up with a plan to subsidise rural Post Offices so that they stay open, for the benefit of the few that really need them. Can Runnymede not attempt to operate a similar scheme, or press Surrey County Council to act in some way?
Interestingly, you make no mention of my plan to scrap the surcharge put on payments made to the council via Post Offices. Could it be that you think this is a good idea and agree with me?
Today I spoke to the owner of ‘Sohi’ on Bond Street and asked him what the six Conservative councillors were doing to assist his application to run a Post Office. His reply of, “I can’t comment… I don’t actually know.’, summarises the attitude the Conservatives have towards ordinary working and elderly people that rely on the Post Office for communication and pensions respectively. Another case of ‘all talk, no trousers’ I think.
6) Roxanne’s claim that Englefield Green councillors ‘barely hold any surgeries that give local residents the opportunities to express their views or seek advice’ is not unjustified. There is no mention on your councillor’s page on the Runnymede Borough Council Website of when you hold surgeries, though there is a link to this pretentious blog; there is no mention in the Council Diary when you hold surgeries (though your Conservative counterparts in Egham Hythe seemed to have managed it) and details of surgery cannot be found on the contact page of this blog-website. Why don’t you advertise surgeries more openly than through attacking myself and Roxanne?
Is it because somebody, with a problem that you may be able to help with, may turn up and give you some work to do?
Expect to see Roxanne and myself attending your surgery on the second Saturday in May (that’s the 10th, so there isn’t any confusion) at 11am, at the Village Hall on Harvest Road – just to satisfy ourselves that you’re not telling porkies to save your bacon (no pun intended).
7) Your claim that the provision of cycle paths is an issue for the County Council is not wholly true. This is the case on A-roads (so Egham Hill, the A30 and St. Jude’s Road, the A328), but on smaller roads, they are the responsibility of Runnymede Borough Council.
There are no bicycle lanes on the Forest Estate, and residents have to chain their bicycles to benches and fences due to a lack of adequate parking facilities. Earlier this year, a resident was knocked off their bicycle near the cemetery, forced to cycle down a busy, narrow road, in order to remain within the law. Do you want to be the one to tell them that there is nothing to complain about with regard to bicycle lanes? I hope you realise by passing the buck on to Surrey County Council, you are shirking the responsibility that you were elected to hold.
You also claim that ‘the County Council has recently funded an excellent new cycle path leading alongside Egham Hill’. Do you really think that Roxanne and I are stupid enough to fall for this one? The cycle lane you refer to was there when I arrived at Royal Holloway in September 2005 and any fool can see, from the condition of the road markings that it certainly isn’t new, or recent.
Furthermore, your assessment of the Egham Hill cycle lane as ‘excellent’ clearly shows that you have probably never even cycled down it. For the most part it is nothing more than a thick white line running down the side of the road, without the green shading seen in cycle lanes in other boroughs, so it isn’t immediately obvious to motorists what purpose the line is supposed to serve.
Then, without warning, approximately 25 yards before reaching Middle Hill, the line suddenly terminates, as the road becomes narrower due the presence of a road island. There is no slope in the kerb, for cyclists to mount the pavement (as is the case near the entrance to the College), so they are forced to merge with the traffic that could easily be travelling in excess of the 40 MPH speed limit as a result of the downward gradient of the road. Not only does this render the entire cycle lane pointless (and therefore a waste of the taxpayer’s money), but it could be potentially lethal. Why don’t you go, have a look and see that your ‘excellent’ cycle line is in fact a death trap?
Indeed, most of the cyclists that use Egham Hill are aware of this problem and use the pavement, shared with pedestrians, on the South (College) side of Egham Hill instead, which is little more than a metre wide. A resounding triumph for the Conservative County Council, wouldn’t you say?
As for the new Civic Offices, every party campaigning in the Borough seems to have a different figure for how much they’ve actually cost, so we’ll use yours Dan. With the total building cost of the new offices being £16,500,000, and the cost of refurbishment of the old offices being £6,500,000, that leaves £10 million with which to build more council houses, that the borough desperately needs; or making provisions for the recycling of cardboard and plastic – two items which cause a litter problem in the borough (ever walked past Egham Station on the day before refuse collections?), or making the Corby Drive Youth Centre look presentable and inviting.
Despite your claims that the present offices were given a shelf-life of 25 years, the very fact that they have lasted for 40 years shows that they were built to last. I’ll be honest – the pebbles set in concrete on the car park side of the building, do look pretty naff, but £16.5 million? Is that really necessary? There is no excuse for such huge expense.
Using the £11,000 compensation Willmot Dixon are paying for each week the Civic Offices are delayed as justification for the delay is shallow – as you do not say what the money is being spent on: deep-cut Wilton shag pile carpet for the council chamber, perhaps? Maybe some Connolly leather trimmed seats to make yourselves feel at home, while discussing which public service to axe next?
Furthermore, I don’t know how you can expect people to believe the new Civic Office building to be of the ‘very highest quality’ when there have been construction problems before its completion. Any building that suffers from construction defects before it is ready, clearly has a flawed design (studying physics, I should know). No amount of compensation or refusal by the council ‘to take possession of the buildings until all construction problems were [are] eliminated’ will disguise this. As a friend of travel writer and comedian Michael Palin once said, ‘you can’t polish a turd.’
I find the absence of any rebuttal to my other plans to make provisions for the recycling of cardboard and plastic, getting buses to run later in the evening during the week and improving car parking problems in Englefield Green, an admission of approval. In her leaflet, Cllr Marisa Heath argues that students bringing their cars to University should not be a problem for residents: I agree with her, however, there has been a problem for quite some time now and clearly nothing is being done about it.
With regard to your closing comment ‘I apologise for taking a considerably more party political tone than I have traditionally taken…’, I feel I should point you again, towards the aforementioned letter to The Founder, where you describe ‘hoisting the Red Flag over Runnymede’s historic meadows will involve a political feat akin to that Sir Edmund Hillary’s scaling of Mount Everest.’, which also goes against your advocating ‘to move beyond petty point-scoring and deliver for local residents.’, in the opening paragraph to your blog. What a sincere man you are, Dan.
Without a doubt, the May 1st result will be an interesting one. With the closure of various public services in the village, the lack of lighting on local footpaths and the reluctance of local councillors to do anything about it, non-existent or dangerous cycle lanes, new offices costing £16.5 million that nobody except the Conservatives on the council wanted, the reduction of fire services in Egham and Chertsey (yes I know, that’s the County Council, but nevertheless you’re all in Conservative control) and the rampant over-development of the area and selling-off of public owned land to private ownership, one can’t help but ask the question: are you thinking what we’re thinking?
Sebastian Michnowicz, Labour Party Candidate, Englefield Green East
April 28, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Great post, Dan. I’m pleased to see that at least you and your colleagues see to have done your homework! In terms of the Ilex Close footpath, we all really appreciate you coming to meet me us to discuss the lighting problems in the area. Good luck on Thursday.
April 29, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Sebastian,
I have just finished reading your email to Cllr Hamilton which he has informed me he will respond to you tonight, and would like to inform you of the following (please forgive me if I try to keep it brief), re the Engle Meade planning application whilst Cllr Hamilton does not sit on the Planning committee he did appear and speak robustly at the planning committee where this was decided, He also provided much of the background work that enabled the resident to put their case well,
If you wish to bring other applications into the argument I would suggest you look at the one on the A30 that was turned down by RBC on excellent planning issues and subsequently overturned by the planning inspectorate who are under extreme pressure to meet the targets set by your party, or perhaps you would care to explain to me the application in Addlestone on the old Safeway supermarket site where a developer applied to build 191 flats with only 121 parking spaces turned down by the RBC planning department, turned down by the planning inspectorate and oops passed by the deputy prime ministers office with the added statement that they believed the developer overpaid for the site so no affordable housing would be required, the developer smiled left the meeting and sold the site with a 4 million pound profit benefit to the people of Runnymede = 0 thanks Labour, before you spout off about what has been approved try brushing up on what planning departments can turn down.
l will openly admit that I was sceptical of students from RHUL becoming councillors, but I am pleased to say Cllr Hamilton has proved to be a great asset to this village, regarding the youth club much of the delay has been down to the county council agreeing and delivering a new lease, but rest assured as soon as it is in place that facility will be a great place for the youth of this village, if you have any doubt I would suggest you contact the local resident Mr John Scott who has led the charge he is not political and will tell you straight how things are, regards the lighting and cctv it probably has not occurred to you that the cctv systems in the old council offices were running at the maximum capacities that could be handled, you probably have also not considered that some of the residents who have properties that run alongside these alleys and shortcuts that many students use late at night actually do not want extra lighting, we even have a case where a group of residents do not want the extra cctv to combat the antisocial behaviour that they are reporting, your leaflet no matter how you try to paint it up was wrong and contained miss information in much of what you both stated.
Perhaps a simple sorry would have been easier as it is precisely that attitude that perhaps explains why there are no Labour seats in Runnymede, should that remain the same after this election you could always join EGVRA and have their rep raise any issues you may have or visit and put your point as a resident across at the monthly council surgery that is held on the second Saturday of each month advertised in the EGVRA newsletter residents, notice boards, and local paper or if you have difficulty in attending you may wish to have your student union rep put your points to us at the working group with RHUL that Cllr Hamilton has actively helped create and asked us all to support which we have to date all done so
Regards
Cllr Michael Kusneraitis
April 29, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Cllr Kusneraitis,
Thank you for your email. I am sorry that my e-mail to Dan Hamilton was on the lengthy, however, there were many issues to address, which had to be furnished with suitable explanations in order to provide a worthy counterargument. Inevitably, it grew.
With regards to planning applications - you both seem keen to talk about high profile applications that are in the public eye. My main concern, and the concern of residents I have campaigned to, is the building of houses on smaller plots of land in Englefield Green, or the replacement of business premises with houses that could make life more difficult for residents who will have to travel to Egham to access services and will reduce the number of visitors to the village, that remaining businesses rely on for income.
People are beginning to realise that the council is allowing the rampant over-development of the village as more houses means more council tax payers - the more council tax payers you have generating revenue, the less you need to make unpopular council tax increases - at the expense of the quality of life for residents who live near to these new developments.
We have considered that residents may be opposed to extra lighting on footpaths - the simple answer to this is to provide lighting that is appropriately shielded so that only the footpath is illuminated instead of people’s gardens and houses. Street lighting near airports is like this, albeit for a different reason.
In any case, the issue here is that Cllr Hamilton wrote that, as you no doubt read in my e-mail to him, ‘The money is on the table and the lighting will be provided shortly - before Christmas, I hope.’, and there is no lighting despite it being nearly May, only to go on and say in his blog entry of last weekend, that lights will arrive in the ‘coming months’. Would you accept any responsibility, if, God forbid, something bad was to happen, as it has twice in the last three years?
With regard to the youth centre, I congratulate you on securing the £5,000 grant - I hope it can be put to use quickly, and that the facilities take less time to arrive than the lights on the footpath that joins Ilex Close and Blays Lane.
If you believe that the information in my leaflet was as misleading as you make out, then you are right, a simple ’sorry’ would have been much easier. I understand that no matter how popular a councillor is, they cannot be ‘all things to all men’, however as long as residents are voicing serious concerns about how the local area is run, I feel compelled to make a stand, and fight their battle.
Regards,
Sebastian Michnowicz
Labour Party Candidate, Englefield Green East
April 29, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Dear Sebastian
Ok welcome to politics you seem to be grasping what your party wants so here is the facts, nearly all of the unreasonable types of planning applications across the borough inc Englefield Green has been fought against by the planning committee, All the applications that residents have objected to since my election that have had grounds for refusal I as a member of the planning committee have presented the case, this I have done with full support of the EG Cllr’s on many occasions all six cllrs have attended the planning meetings concerned but the sad fact is that your chosen party which happens to be the government of the day has set a bench mark for planning and constantly re writes the book as it feels fit, every time we vote against officer recommendation or a developer takes it to appeal it not only cost us money but we risk losing any of the controls we put in place ie affordable housing, landscaping ect ect, as re the one in Addlestone I have informed you of, the one that was approved on the A30 by the inspectorate was passed with the comments “I see no reason why vehicles should not turn across three lanes of traffic” one month later an American woman was killed at this spot. If you doubt what I am trying to tell you please feel free to call our planning officer’s who are politically independent for the straight answer or go online and back track through the system these problems are Labour created and driven by labour even Tony Blair has jumped ship on this subject.
You seem to forget that the more houses built the more residents living here only equals more services required may I suggest you look at the facts and see how much money per head we receive from your party the goverment compared to other boroughs, look at all the surrounding Boroughs and see what services they provide compared to RBC and as it was your choice to put QEH into your manifesto I would suggest you try and find another borough close to us that provides anything close to the 4 day centres we have (I live in Runnymede, pay council tax and like the services I get compared to other boroughs but like everyone else want more but that costs)
Sad to say the lighting you mention will be in the pipeline but is not controlled by RBC and is a county issue, lighting the alley in the manner you suggest would actually be quite dangerous as any potential elderly, young person be they male or female walking in this path of light would not be able to see an assaillent lurking in the bushes or dark spots, we have experts for this to at RBC if you call they will advise you independently of our party as do Surrey police, Cllr Hamilton will only have quoted what information they provided, but you will see County runs on a different gear than RBC.
I obviously believe your leaflet was incorrect or I would have refrained from telling you so, whilst you may mean well with this statement “as long as residents are voicing serious concerns about how the local area is run, I feel compelled to make a stand, and fight their battle.” Where do you stand if the resident is wrong do you intend just to fight for the sake of it? I choose to look into both sides as you will find things are not always as they seem
Re the youth club, as soon as the lease to be issued by county is signed it will have a lot more made available than just money, sorry if I am short and to the point but I am only a resident of this village raising my children here as well as being a cllr and will probably still be here long after you and your co candidate have passed your degree and moved on, nothing you have said you will provide has not been covererd by us, much of what you desire is not within the remit of a RBC councillor, so how will you improve this village and the borough you wish to represent other than false promise which is no good to my wife and children let alone the rest of the people, whilst I admire your tenacious grip on the bone, we found the meat and the veg and provided the bacon.
See you Thursday
Regards
Mike
April 29, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Dear Sebastian,
Thank you for your messages. Cllr Kusneraitis appears to have responded to many of the points you have made but nonetheless I would like to offer some points of clarification.
I will take immediate issue with one of the comments you have made in your missive:
“Is it because somebody, with a problem that you may be able to help with, may turn up and give you some work to do?”
Please feel free to attack me on issues - as you have done - but please don’t debase your arguments by seeking to claim I am in any way an absent, indolent or lazy councillor.
As Cllr Kusneraitis says, the date and time of our surgeries is advertised in the local press and on the community notice boards. Each meeting is attended by a committee member of the Englefield Green Village Residents’ Association (EGVRA). The suggestion that I, in any way, avoid responding to messages for residents is preposterous and illustrates a lack of knowledge about my work in the local community. Runnymede Borough Council is comprised of excellent councillors from all parties who, to a man, do their very best to represent their communities. I would personally think nothing of vocally disagreeing with opposition councillors but would never seek to claim they in any way shirked their responsibilities or displayed a lack of care towards their constituents.
I have created this blog as a way of communicating information to local residents about what is going on in the village. I appreciate that you may consider it “pretentious” but this view is not shared by the hundreds of residents of the village who turn to it each day for information.
I accept your comments with regards to advertising the surgery on this website and on the Council website. Thanks for the suggestion.
Whilst I accept we disagree on various issues, I await your personal apology for your aforementioned comments as to my work ethic.
With regards to the gentleman on Armstrong Road, I am always happy to meet with any constituent. My contact details are a matter of public record - and I have certainly been contacted on many occasions by residents who would like me to oppose unsuitable planning applications.
I do appreciate the pressures you have upon you in completing your degree but you are not alone in having to work hard. In the ward I represent - and the ward you are seeking to represent - one of my fellow councillors is the ultra-busy Chief Executive of a successful airline services company yet is possibly the best-briefed member of the Borough Council. If you are going to produce a piece of literature in the future, please make sure you print the correct names of roads you wish to represent.
On the topic of the Blays Lane development, I will keep my comments brief. All of your six Conservative councillors attended the planning meeting in question and spoke out against the development. I am sure any the 60+ local residents who attended the meeting will be happy to confirm this.
Your message is full of comments about what you would like to see the Borough Council provide but provides almost no clarification as to how you would like to fund your promises. Owing to your Labour Government’s bias towards the north of the country, Surrey County Council receives less funding than any other County Council in the country with each person in Surrey getting only £205 from the Government towards the cost of all local Government services. The average person in the UK gets £595. If you lived in Manchester you would get £856. This year the government has awarded us an extra cash sum of £2 million – less than the actual £3 million we will pay in landfill tax to the Government. Please attempt to defend Labour’s policies towards local government.
With regard to lighting along the Blays Lane to Larksfield footpath, the lighting was approved for lighting last year and I had hoped it would be installed sooner than it has been. The improvements are on the financial calendar for the 08/09 session and will be installed before the dark winter nights of 2008.
As for the cycle path, it stops at Middle Hill for safety reasons owing to an exit existing there and it going downhill. There is a section to safely cross Middle Hill and then the cycle path moves to the pavement. Please do take a look the next time you ‘cycle down the hill.
In terms of the competences of the County Council with regards to the Youth Club, what exactly do you mean by passing the “buck on”? I have spoken to Cllr Heath and she is rather offended by this remark given that you have no knowledge of the background to this facility and the excellent work she has been doing on it. The IT equipment can only be given to the Youth Club once the lease is signed next month. There has been no “buck passing”.
Please try to remember that there is a difference between the County and Borough Councils. The election this week is for the Borough Council. County Councillor Heath has asked me to let you know that she would be delighted to respond to any questions you have regarding Surrey County Council.
I look forward to meeting you for the first time at the count on Thursday evening and welcoming you as a ‘regular fixture’ at my surgery on the second Saturday of each month at 11am in the Social Hall on Harvest Road.
Regards,
Dan
April 29, 2008 at 8:35 pm
p.s. - I have spoken to Cllr John Ashmore, the Leader of the Independent Group on the Borough Council and he has confirmed that he is “totally in favour” of the new Civic Offices development and that former Cllr Brian Relph (who sadly stood down from the Council last month) was on the committee responsible for the reprovisioning of the new offices from the start.
April 30, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Dan,
Thank you for your reply, however, once again, you have avoided the real issues and made some inaccuracies yourself, I feel compelled to point out to you.
You purport that I have a ‘lack of knowledge about [your] work in the local community.’, yet you go on to say that ‘Runnymede Borough Council is comprised of excellent councillors from all parties, but the council website reveals that of the 42 seats on the council, 36 are occupied by the the Conservatives and 6 by the Runnymede Independent Residents Group, who don’t represent any political party. No seats are held by the Liberal Democrats, UKIP or my party, Labour, who have all put up candidates in the forthcoming election. Clearly you have a lack of knowledge of the very council that you sit on. Indeed, even Cllr Mike Kusneraitis points out that Labour has no seats on Runnymede Borough Council.
You also say:
‘I would personally think nothing of vocally disagreeing with opposition councillors but would never seek to claim they in any way shirked their responsibilities or displayed a lack of care to their constituents.’
For a start, I am not an opposition councillor to you – yet. Secondly, I think Cllr Mike Kusneraitis should direct his ‘welcome to politics’ remark at you, instead of trying to patronise me with it.
You say that hundreds of residents of the village turn to your blog every day for information. Given that, in rounded figures, Englefield Green has a population of about 8000; ‘hundreds’ doesn’t seem all that much. It wouldn’t be the same hundreds that always turn out on Polling Day and vote Conservative?
I am glad you thought my suggestion that you should advertise your surgeries through your website, through the council website, and in the council diary (as with your Egham Hythe counterparts). As soon as details of the surgery appear in all of these three places, I will set about retracting my comment suggesting you are ‘absent, indolent or lazy’ and issuing you with an apology. It will be in my best handwriting.
Unfortunately, the local newspaper doesn’t always receive the wide readership it deserves; not all residents are members of the EGVRA or attend its meetings and not all the public notice boards advertise your surgery either: the one outside the Social Hall has no notice advertising surgery, nor does the one by the cemetery on St. Jude’s Road, which I checked as I walked past them today.
I appreciate that in such a close knit community such information also travels by word-of-mouth, however, the assumption that it reaches everybody still cannot be made.
You ask me to make sure I print the correct names of roads that I wish to represent. May I ask you, therefore, to please do the same? You mention that you are always happy to visit a constituent, with regard to going to see a particular gentleman in Armstrong Road. An e-mail I sent to you yesterday morning (the 29th), at 10.00, which, curiously, you haven’t included here, unlike my communications with Cllr Mike Kusneraitis, has said gentleman living in Alexandra Road. If you go back and check this e-mail, you will see that I am right. Please publish it for all to see. Indeed, going to see him will dispel any doubt, as I’m sure he has a few things to say to you.
I am more than happy to defend Labour’s ‘attitude’, as you put it, towards local government. Surrey is one of the most affluent parts of the country. Indeed, if, hypothetically, the Home Counties (all of which are under Conservative control) were to be decared a State in its own right, it would be the tenth most affluent in the world. Labour has a bias towards the North as it is the opposite of the Home Counties – there is more unemployment and those in employment earn less than those in similar jobs in the South of the Country.
I will draw upon the County Durham town of Easington Colliery. Fifteen years after a Tory government under the control of John Major closed the deep pit mine there, it remains an unemployment blackspot. The people there are not in a position to pay for the services that they require to put food on the table, or clothe their children, or for the schools they attend, to get the best education possible, enabling them to break out of their poverty. It is a Labour government that has taken the responsibility for these people in the manner of County Council funding. These people and hundreds of thousands of others that became unemployed in the North of the country as a result of Thatcher’s closing or underselling of British heavy industry throughout the 1980s – the pride of the Nation.
Surrey, luckily, has never had this problem, and so does not need as much money. In answer to the £3 million landfill tax bill, prehaps this would be lower if we made the effort to recycle cardboard and plastic?
The 12p per week increase in council tax you advocated in your February 16th blog entry shows just how little tax needs to be increased by in order to provide good services, particularly in such a wealthy part of the country.
Moving on to the subject of the Egham Hill cycle lane, I am perfectly aware that it stops short of Middle Hill for safety reasons. Having learned to drive in London, I have witnessed the danger caused by cycle lanes that pass unmitigated infront of the entrance/exits to side roads. My issue is with the manner in which the cycle lane terminates. I will not try and explain again as you clearly haven’t understood. Perhaps I should bring some paper, pencils and a try sqaure and maybe even some coloured pencils to your surgery and draw you a diagram with arrows, stick men and cars? Better than that, I think I will personally approach Cllr Marisa Heath with my misgivings regarding the cycle lane, as it seems from your response to my message that she is far more approachable and understanding.
With regard to my comment on ‘passing the buck on’ about the condition of the Corby Drive Youth Centre, I am sorry Cllr Marisa Heath has been offended by it as the comment was aimed squarely at you, Dan. Please re-read my remarks and understand that I was just asking you not to blame the County Council for the condition of something that is not in their care, the way you suggested that all cycle lanes, even those on minor roads, are the responsibility of Surrey County Council, which simply isn’t true . While the Youth Centre may be the property of Surrey County Council, by virtue of being hired by Runnymede Borough Council, local councillors should be making the effort to keep it looking its best. To avoid any further confusion, I will personally remedy the situation with Cllr Marisa Heath, tomorrow, at the vote count.
I am perfectly aware of the difference between County and Borough Councils. Again, take some of your own advice and don’t debase the value of your political argument (of which there is precious little), by trying to make a fool of me: I’ve done my homework.
I look forward to seeing you too, tomorrow,
Sebastian