STANFORD-le-Hope West Labour candidate Terry Hipsey, has lambasted the coalition governments localism policy, labelling it as “a political hoodwinking con.”
His attack comes days after the secretary of state, Eric Pickles rubber stamped an approval for a large building development, an application that was submitted by Barrett homes to build three hundred and fifty properties as St Cleres Golf Course.
Mr Hipsey said,”For the second time in two weeks the people of Stanford-Le Hope have witnessed the sheer hypocrisy of this coalition governments localism bill and have ridden roughshod over local peoples wishes.
“This latest gut-wrenching approval goes against hundreds of local people whom made their views known,yet were ignored.
“The only planning body who supported the resident views was Thurrock Council where I chaired the planning committee.
Frankly I for one am amazed that the local Conservatives have the blind cheek to say they are ardent supporters of protecting Thurrocks green belt,but nevertheless it is the same local Conservatives who voted to give up areas of green belt land in Grays, Aveley, Stanford and Corringham.
Only last year I warned Thurrock residents what I feared would could happen after another of these large developments was approved at East Tilbury and I was concerned that it would open the “flood gates ” for other such developments.
“My worry is that with the huge port expansion at Coryton, is this just the first of other developments that could be earmarked for Stanford”.
I think someone should tell the local Tories that Eric Pickles is absolutely burying them under a huge housing estate formerly known as Thurrock. Now know as immigrationville.
The floodgates were pulled open by the DC not by Eric Pickles or the local Tories. The DC which was Labours attempt to concrete over Thurrock set the wheels in motion for all these plans. Without this corporation there would not have been so many plans passed. It was easier for the DC to chip away at the green belt rather than try and peice together the development in Purfleet which was supposed to be their jewel in the crown. While Eric Pickles has failed to protect this land, he did refuse to more green belt land being built on in Aveley only last year after a well run campaign by the local Tory councillors opposing the plan. The only way we are going to protect our greenbelt is once planning is brought back under Thurrock Council.
It cannot be denied that the floodgates were opened by the development corporation which labour brought into Thurrock as they were unable to cope with planning issues. Mr Hipsey would do well to remember that he sat on the board of the DC for many years but as the labour party in general there seems to be complete denial of any existence before 2010.For fear of being lambasted again by Sallyb I reiterate this man does not have a sincere bone in his body and therefore cannot be taken seriously. I am not happy with Mr Pickles decision to allow this development, but its done now so we have to look to the council to ensure that the correct infrastructure is put in place, and look to the local conservatives to ensure they keep to their manifesto, which I must say is a first, I dont recall seeing one in the past, and I certainly dont see one from the ruling labour administration, we now have a document to which we can hold our local councillors accountable to, well at least the conservative ones anyway.
The hoodwinking con is, infact, Turncoat Terry.
Bernard and Chickenfeed seem to be missing the point in their desire to once again attack Terry Hipsey. You may or may not agree whether the Development Corporation was necessary or not, but its role was to come up with a co-ordinated plan for the expansion of housing and services in Thurrock. The plans that it produced did this to an extent. Again you can disagree with the plans themselves. Personally, I felt both were unnecessary.
What Eric Pickles has done is to demonstrate that the idea of a “presumption in favour of sustainable development” is much more about developing than creating anything sustainable.
Bernard and Chickenfeed seem to be saying that simply by having a development plan the DC is an invitation for anyone to develop anything at will, which is clearly nonsense.
The Butts Lane development was not in the Master Plans produced by the Development Corporation and is not in anything agreed by Thurrock Council. Allowing it to go ahead shows how much value Eric Pickles puts by the idea of a “localism” agenda.
Mr Hipsey is now very vocal regarding this development, up until now, other than preside over the Thurrock Council Planning Committee Meeting, which informed the DC that Thurrock Council were against the development he REALLY hasn’t given the local residents any support.
I am sure the local residents REALLY would have appreciated some REAL help during their long running campaign, His words of support are too late and too little especially as he is the Local Councillor for Butts Lane
When you look at the bigger picture with the local elections coming up. it all begins to make sense…..!
One wonders if the Conservatives actually bothered to read what they were voting for last December when they voted for the Borough’s Local Development Framework plan?
Having vocally campaigned against any extra traveller or Gypsy pitches in Thurrock – even going as far as taking the previous Labour Government to Court to stop plans for extra pitches – they then voted for an additional 87 pitches to be built over the next 9 years.
Having vocally campaigned against any development in the Green Belt they have voted for 15% of new houses (2775 homes) to be built on Thurrocks Green Belt.
They also voted for an additional 4750 dwellings above the 18500 already agreed to be located in the borough – so although the Local Development Framework plan identifies where 18500 homes go – it also prepares the way for an additional 4750 homes to be built – so at least 23250 homes will be built over the next 14 years.
As for defending the Green Belt the Conservatives voted for it to be Thurrock Council policy to “continue to identify further sites within the Green Belt to allocate for residential development” and for “building to continue on the Green Belt where appropriate.”
I havn’t plucked the above information from thin air or made it up – it’s in the document that the Borough’s Councillors voted for in December 2011.
I did not attack Mr Hipsey in my comment but stated that if we did not have the DC all these green belt plans would not be an issue nor if we wasn’t seen as a “growth area” which really means a massive housebuilding area.
As for wanting to build 23k homes in Thurrock in the next 14 years – I sincerely hope that does not happen but Thurrock seems to take the lions share of Essex housing. Maybe we need to take a leaf out of Epping Forest and Brentwoods book???
There is no question that the overall blame for the need to build millions of new homes nationally lies with the Labour party. They massively increased the population in this country in a totally uncontrolled way and the consequences are now there for everyone to bear. Every single person in this country will have to pay the price for Labour’s mass immigration policy all in the name of creating a population in their socialist idealist view. The people that will pay the highest price are the young people that never stood a chance of being able to afford to buy their own home or in most cases even rent one. The pressure applied by Labour’s mass immigration policy on wages and on jobs competition was immense on young people. That’s why we have a massive welfare state to compensate for that. Something which Labour would extend even further if they were ever to be voted back into power. Their betrayal of the young people of this country is almost absolute in terms of their future aspirations of a decent family life for them and any future children they may have.
NoVoice – you may have noticed we have a Conservative Government and a Conservative Secratery of State. This application was submitted under the current Conservative Government. The current Conservative Government said they would rip up Labour’s house building targets and defend the green belt.
Residents thought the Conservatives would stop this application and defend the green belt.
Instead Eric Pickles sticks two fingers up at local residents and approves this plan – at the same time rejecting a housing estate on green belt in Newmarket, Suffolk.
More worryingly we now discover that the local Conservative Councillors have voted for 18,500 homes to be built in Thurrock, at least 2,775 of these will be on green belt, Conservatives have also voted for an additional 4,750 homes and 87 gypsy and traveller pitches to be built in Thurrock so 23,250 homes and 87 traveller pitches have been agreed by the Conservatives when they all voted for the local development plans in December 2010.
They have published a manifesto promising to defend Thurrocks green belt but the post from Ed shows they have agreed for over 23 thousand extra homes to be built in the borough.
And in reply to Really – Cllr Terry Hipsey is Chair of Planning so would have been prevented from giving any official view on the planning application as he would have pre determined his views and been prevented by the legislation from voting for or against the plans. As Chair of planning, and after listening for the arguments for and against, he could then instruct his planning committee to vote for or against the plans.
Cllr Hipsey could have been suspended from being a councillor if he had given a view on the plans and then voted on them and the the council would have been hit by a hefty legal bill as planners or protesters could have taken the council to court to get the plans re heard.
These are the crazy rules that gag ward councilors from giving opinions on planning issues if they sit on a planning commitee.
I’m not disputing that the Tories action in allowing these developments against the will of the majority of people in Thurrock is pathetic when taken together with their protestations about the developments. It’s farcical. It is still a fact that as a country we are having to build millions of houses due to Labours mass immigration policy when they were running central government. TTGDC were Labour’s answer to local opposition to any plans because they could not be voted out of power and were not answerable to the electorate. They weren’t set up accidentally. The Labour party knew exactly what they were doing. So it’s bye bye green belt because the only other option is to send the immigrants home and that’s not going to happen while the three main parties continue their stranglehold on politics and power in this country. They couldn’t care less about the opinions of the majority as long as they remain in power.
On a lighter note Eric Pickles has just gone on record stating “Real men don’t eat pasties, they eat growlers.”
What more can one say – will this result in mass panic growler eating?!