We’ve just come back from the count in the Mill Hall. You can the results here.
In our three District “Wards to Watch”:
The Greens kept Hullbridge by a big majority – Diane Hoy (Green) 1116, Mark Hale, (Conservative) 402, Debbie Townsley (Labour) 218
The Conservatives held Rochford Ward by just 45 votes- Gill Lucas-Gill (Conservative) 735 Ron Brown (Labour) 690
The Conservatives fought off a strong challenge from the English Democrats in Trinity Ward – Dave Sperring (Conservative) 408, John Hayter (English Democrats) 334, Keith Gibbs (UKIP) 134, Stephen Hinde (Labour) 83, Chris Stanley (Liberal Democrat) 77
Elsewhere, Lib Dem Trevor Parrett came second out of three candidates in Sweyne Park, and Elena Black came third out of five in Rayleigh Central.
Thanks to everyone who voted for us…
Should that result in Rochford refer to the rather too easily shocked RoB Brown, not RoN Brown, thankfully the losing Labour candidate in Rochford Ward, who apparently considers the use of capitals on the internet as a far a more heinous crime than the crudest personal abuse by Rayleigh Resident, which Admin permitted on an earlier closed thread from the still anonymous ‘Rayleigh Resident’.
High time Admin clarifies the objectives, rules and benchmarks used in the alleged moderation of this site, or explain the inconsistencies displayed by Admin.
Or is crude personal abuse absolutely fine provided it is anti-Conservative?
Thank you for pointing the typo.
We very seldom have problems with moderating comments. It’s difficult to set and hard fast rules, except that comments that contain certain words are automatically blocked and we don’t even see them.
However when someone describes our own writings as ‘puerile rubbish’ we are willing to publish that criticism.
You should actually have taken Rayleigh Residents’ initial comment about the over-use of capitals as very blunt advice from someone who may not be 100% unsympathetic to the aims of the Conservative Party.
Admin/Chris Black
I don’t believe anyone referred to ‘puerile rubbish’ since it might encourage mistaken attempts to recycle much of your partisan ‘nonsense’ referred to as puerile.
Subsequently supported by the losing Labour Candidate in Rochford Ward, Rob Brown, you allowed the appearance of crude personal abuse by the still anonymous Rayleigh Resident (‘RR’), who is certainly no friend of the Conservative Party and much more probably, if not a member/friend of your Party either, then that of a very extremist one, however much you may wriggle publicly after your now meaningless semi-apologist phone call to me on RR’s behalf. As for Rob Brown, given the company he would share the opinions of on this site, he demonstrates that he is plainly not worthy to attempt following in the footsteps of the late and very much respected former Councillor Mrs Maureen Vince of the Rochford Labour Party.
Mr Seagers, just to prove how wrong you are I vote Conservative nationally and Lib Dem locally because Chris and the team are the only people who care about what goes one here in Rayleigh. Yes, there has been some teasing of you ( mainly by me ) and it’s not something that normally goes on but your attitude and style is completely at odds with the whole ethos of this site. Time to draw a line under this one now – these endless spats add no value whatsoever.
RR, many thanks for your comment.
However I certainly do not claim that we are the only ones who care about what goes on in Rayleigh. That would be unfair to others.
But we are a very motivated team.
Rayleigh Resident
There is teasing and then again outright rudeness and abuse that goes far beyond a legitimate response to an internet presentation style that you do not happen to like. Taking advantage of your anonymity to abuse any RDC Member is cowardly when you are fully aware that it is not permissible for them to respond in kind.
As it happens, I care very much about Rayleigh where a family member now lives, just as I do for the whole Rochford District besides my local duties in Foulness & Great Wakering Ward. As Cllr Chris Black stated, I believe that all RDC Members of every political persuasion should care for the good of the whole District too.
I hope now we can get back to genuine civilised debate of matters and policy issues affecting Rochford District.
Cllr Seagers, I do not wish to defend anything RR says or does, do I need to? I think he was right to call you out on your poor netiquette, but perhaps his manner was wrong. I just think we should hold our councillors to a higher standard than the ones demonstrated on a recent thread. I have no wish to have another online argument with you though so I shall leave it here.
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I only mentioned RR because I so often disagree with him politically.
Rob Brown
There is no perhaps about it. If you knew it to be wrong, why on earth did you agree with RR’s abuse, effete ‘netiquette’ views or not?
Hey – I’ve just looked up the meaning of effete – it means weak, cowardly, feeble, ineffectual, decrepit, spineless, enfeebled, weak-kneed (informal), enervated, overrefined, chicken-hearted, wimpish or wimpy. I should know what it meant but we didn’t use words like that at my school, in fact the only success measure was leaving with both ears.
Anyway….looks like I’m off of someone’s Christmas Card List.
With rise in cost of stamps everyone I know is off my list. With rise in use of text messaging, email, facebook etc has the Post Office made a big error in raising prices so much.
It is hardly surprising that there is a general lethargy and apathy with the electorate if this sort of upset shown by an over sensitive RDC Councillor, appears to be the pinnacle of debate (I use the posted comments total as an indicator) in this rather pathetic petty-minded corner of the country.
LW – welcome to onlinefocus.
But I’d hate you to judge the general level of civility of this website by just a few recent comments.
And our district certainly isn’t “pathetic” 🙁
I fail to understand the anonymous Little Wonder’s odd sense of values, apparently ranking my use of some emphasising capital letters on the internet as a far more heinous crime than personal abuse of an allegedly ‘over sensitive’ councillor. Perhaps LW did not see a previous thread or read RR’s posts closely enough.
Frankly, as previously stated here, I prefer to get back to discussing important matters. Such as ascertaining why certain District Councillors still do not think having an adopted Core Strategy in place to protect the entire District is a good thing, apparently simply because they do not want their fair share of new housing allocated within their Ward and/or do not understand that under 1% of our green belt must be released if we are have sufficient land to reach the housing land supply required of RDC in the long term. The alternative (if there were no adopted Core Strategy) of developers receiving near automatic ‘approval on appeal’ for unlimited large housing developments, immediately and on sites of their choice virtually anywhere or everywhere in this District, is unthinkable.
I think the turnout is particularly poor in our region because a lot of the National Conservatives don’t feel their party does enough for them locally (which they don’t) – We just need to get people switched on to voting local to look after their own town at these elections, rather than not voting at all. Good to see you keeping abreast of the happenings in Rayleigh by visiting here so regularly Colin.
Trevor I fully support your last post. I am an advocate of not voting for one party nationally and locally if you have differing views on how you are treated. Local government and national government are on a par as far as I am concerned. In fact the way you change national government policy is by voting out Councillors of the same party. The recent local elections have shown a large section of the electorate are not happy with the way the Tories are working for us. David Cameron is not listening to the people of this country and this has been shown in the way many Tory Councillors have been voted out of office. The way we vote in local elections can and does have a bearing on how the government or opposition position themselves when national elections come along. Housing development issues in Rayleigh has caused us problems since 2000 and it was us, the local voters that got the huge development that the Tories wanted to approve, turned down. Never forget we have the whip hand and we can change policy.
Trevor
I’ll take that as a compliment, as I so rarely have the opportunity, thank you.
I do take an interest in Rayleigh, having cause to visit the town so often, but this site is headlined by the slogan ‘onlineFOCUS – News and Stuff for the Rochford District’, so it would not be quite correct to infer from my visits on this site that I am interested only in Rayleigh besides Foulness & Great Wakering. So far as I am concerned, every Member has a duty to represent his or her Ward’s residents’ interests but has an equal duty to ensure the good of the whole District too, and sometimes conflict arising between those two duties appears to make striking the right balance rather more difficult for some than others.
As for national politics, perhaps one needs to remember that it is not a Conservative Government in power currently and in a Coalition Government no single participating Party is ever wholly satisfied.
Colin, we do indeed bill our site as “News And Stuff For Rochford District” – that’s always been our aim, though we need to beef up our coverage of the eastern part of the district.