The minutes to the last Full District Council meeting are now available here.
Here you can find the written answers to the public questions – due to technical problems we can’t cut and paste them on to onlineFOCUS right now, we should be able to do it tomorrow morning…:
(a) From Mr J E Cripps of 5 Durham Way, Rayleigh, of the Deputy
Leader of the Council:-
?On the 21st September 2013 Cllr Hudson issued an open letter making
various personal pledges in respect of the Local Development
Framework- Rayleigh & Rawreth. My question relates to the following
“quoted” statement:-
“To facilitate this it will be necessary to relocate the Rayleigh Sports and
Social Club (a valued facility for our residents), they will receive new and
enhanced facilities in recognition of their contribution to Rayleigh life at no
cost to themselves – this is my pledge.”
Recently the Leader of the Council (Cllr Cutmore) has announced, via the
letters page of the Evening Echo, that there will not be any new and
enhanced facilities for RTSSC.
My question is, therefore, at what Council meeting was this
discussed/agreed and recorded.?
The Leader of the Council, Cllr T G Cutmore, responded on behalf of the
Deputy Leader as follows:-
?The provision of new and enhanced facilities for the Rayleigh Sports and
Social Club was predicated on the possibility of the Council?s land
currently occupied by the Social Club being required for future housing
development. It has now been concluded that there is no requirement for
the Council?s land to be used to facilitate the building of housing. That
being the case Rayleigh Sports and Social Club, a private members only
club, can remain precisely where it is for the foreseeable future. Without
the need for the land to be used for housing it will be down to the Club, as
a private business, to determine its requirements for enhanced facilities in
the future.?
By way of supplementary question Mr Cripps referred again to the pledge
made by the Deputy Leader in recognition of the Sports and Social Club?s
contribution to Rayleigh Life and why this no longer stood.
The Leader re-affirmed that the pledge had been predicated on the
possibility of the Council?s land currently occupied by the Social Club
being required for future housing development, which was no longer the
case.
(b) From Mr R Lambourne of 7 Whitehouse Court, 158 Eastwood Road,
Rayleigh, of the Leader of the Council:-
?I note from the latest edition of Rochford District Matters that the Council
has employed a barrister to defend an action by a local resident
concerning the Core Strategy and Allocation Plan.
Can you confirm who authorised the defence of this action and in
particular the considerable extra expense that is presumably budgeted for
and will be paid for out of the council tax and why that authorisation hasn’t
been sanctioned by the Full Council??
The Leader of the Council, Cllr T G Cutmore, responded as follows:-
?The defence of the legal challenge brought against the Council?s Adopted
Allocation Plan was undertaken by the Head of Legal, Estates and
Member Services in accordance with the authorisation conferred by
Article 13 of the Council?s Constitution.?
By way of supplementary question Mr Lambourne asked if, when
considering possibilities, account had been taken of the costs of not
defending the action and the making of adjustments to the Strategy.
The Leader indicated that every contingency would have been considered
and that the Council had the right to defend its own policies
So as you can see, the question was’nt answered ( my question was which Council meeting discussed it and agreed it ?) , but more to the point the empty pledge to reward RTSSC for their 40 year contribution to Rayleigh was just window dressing.
In fact how comes the £2.1 million and 7 years spent on the Core Plan did’nt come to the conclusion it did’nt need moving until after the Inspector’s Hearing ? – and we all
know why don’t we…………..
Now this would be interesting !
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/lights-camera-democracy-in-action