Dear Editor,
I’m writing in regards to the recent Tory leaflet that was delivered by post to households in Thurrock.
Thurrock’s MP Jackie Doyle Price writes in it that her plan is to ‘protect our greenbelt’, in which she tries to make us believe that she supports more housing, but not building on a greenbelt and that the Labour-run Thurrock council is ‘failing to deliver against local and national policy on protecting greenbelt’.
I would like to correct Ms Doyle-Price: it is this Tory-led government new policy imposed on councils like Thurrock, that as from now the council does not have a say in what and where will be built.
The Tory-led government now can decide what and where can be built in Thurrock.
From now, it is a decision of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. It is a shameful idea of letting the powerful and rich to decide and keep control, while ordinary people have no say over their livelihoods. It is, of course, not surprising; the Tories were always there for a powerful few.
This had happened recently in Stanford-le-Hope, where I will be a local Labour candidate next May. The planning permission for new 350 homes being built on a greenbelt near St Clere’s school was enforced upon Thurrock’s council by Eric Pickles, the Tory government minister.
It didn’t help that the council was opposing it and local residents were expressing their concerns. It is an example of how the Tories messed up in Thurrock, do not want to take responsibility for it and try to blame others; but it is no surprise. They are the same old Tories.
Ella Vine
Labour’s local candidate for Stanford le Hope West
