The District Council have changed the venue for the next two West area committees:
They will now be as follows:
28 November 2007 Salvation Army Hall, 146 – 148 High Street, Rayleigh .
8 January 2008 The Mill Arts and Events Centre, Bellingham Lane, Rayleigh.
The meetings were going to be at Sweyne Park School .The change is as a result of ‘specific comments from councillors’ (must have been from Conservative Councillors) and also ‘from members of the public’ who came along (Conservative party officials?)
Gosh, we wonder if these councillors were objecting because they didn’t like residents in Sweyne Park Ward having such a good opportunity to ask about the Grange Community Centre.
For 30 years or more the council has met in central Rayleigh. There’s not much point in having these meetings in Central Rayleigh as well.
Jackie Dillnutt, and Chris & June Lumley have already put out leaflets telling their residents that the meetings were taking place at Sweyne Park School! We are trying to make this system work, we really want to get the public involved, but it’s hard to do so when the rules keep changing….
PS thanks for the tip-off Alison, you spotted this first!
Chris, Are we allowed to know what the specific comments were and from what Councillors or is that a ‘specific’ secret? For all we know it could be one or two of the ‘senior’ councillors not wanting to hold meetings there for the reasons you have stated. I cannot understand why these meetings have been changed from such a central point?
Do any councillors with the information want to share it with us?? Or are we to get a loud silence once again?
Mike, I think there were some complaints about the location of the room used and the distance from the toilets.
If that’s the case, perhaps another room could be found inside Sweyne Park School, or indeed it could be moved to the Grange Community Centre.
We reckon there will be parking problems at the Salvation Army Hall.
It’s pretty clear that the Conservative Party and the Conservative Group are , at best , uneasy about having public meetings in Western Rayleigh. They would be petrified at having a load of questions thrown at them next time over the Grange Community Centre.
Also we have the planning departments, residential housing figures coming out in the next month. It is a shame though that we will only get figures of dwellings built upto March of this year. We will still be 9 months away from the true figure.
I still have real trouble in understanding why the planning department cannot get to grips with giving the ‘voting public’ real figures!