THURROCK UKIP has thrown one of their own members off the planning committee at Thurrock Council after a war of words over building on the Green Belt.
Two months ago, Stanford East and Corringham Town councillor, Colin Churchman (alongside Ockendon councillor, Kevin Wheeler) voted in favour of a hospice and up to fifty houses being built on green belt land off Lower Dunton Road in Horndon.
Last week, cllr Churchman (a former Thurrock Conservative councillor and mayor) made the following speech at a planning meeting.
Cllr Churchman said:
"Thank you Chairman for granting me the chance to explain the situation I find myself in.
"After the last meeting of the Planning Committee, when I voted in favour of a Planning Application in Langdon Hills, I was immediately (after the meeting) confronted by my fellow members (Ukip), who were upset, because basically, I had not followed party policy with regards to the greenbelt.
"Over a week later, I thought it would settle down. I’ve met with the leadership and other group members to clear the air.
"I tried again to explain the strict rules concerning planning applications – as we all know this a serious matter. After the meeting I was still concerned that the leadership was not taking this on board and understood my concerns.
At this point to protect, no only myself but Thurrock Council (who I believe would have policy and decisions in concerning planning applications), I then thought the best way forward was to send the leadership an email which I again then tried to clarify the position with a further offer to leadership about having a meeting with the Monitoring Officer.
I was surprised when a short while after I received an email which said:
"I find it poor that you do not take into account party policy when coming to a decision, after all you have joined a party with strong well published greenbelt issues".
The email continued that the best way forward was to take me off the Planning Committee, so that I could keep my integrity intact (or words to that effect).
At that point I decided that I had no choice but to involve the Monitoring Officer.
"I hope that you agree at times I have followed the rules as in order to maintain the integrity of the UKIP group and the protection of the authority".
YT spoke to the leader of Thurrock Ukip, cllr Graham Snell so that he could put foreward his side of the story and tell us what action he has decided to take.
Cllr Snell said:
"I will start by saying that Cllr Churchman has over-reacted somewhat and would perhaps have been wiser to have kept a cool head over this issue. Both UKIP Cllrs voted in favour of the hospice development. Neither myself or anyone else on my group spoke to them in advance of the planning meeting so the decision they came to was theirs and theirs alone.
You will also be aware that UKIP has a policy that is against development of green belt sites so it was not a surprise that some of our supporters in the gallery that night were shocked when the vote was made and it was one of those supporters that sought to have words with Colin after the meeting.
I did speak with Colin immediately after the meeting and I did tell him that I wasn’t happy with they way he or Cllr Wheeler voted as it was against one of UKIP’s core policies.
Cllr Churchman felt that I was wrong to criticise his decision and that any advice to have regard to UKIP policy was against strict rules in place for Planning Committees. Cllr Wheeler, on the other hand, whilst sticking to his guns on the decision he made, saw my point of view.
Cllr Churchman had a meeting with myself to discuss this and other issues and I thought that we had come to a position we were both happy with but I later received an email from him which left no doubt that he still had concerns. It was at this point that I emailed Colin to tell him that, as we couldn’t come to a resolution about him following UKIP policy, and to protect his integrity, I would remove him from planning.
"Colin then decided to seek the advice of the monitoring officer. The monitoring officer told me of their meeting and said that he told Colin that it was entirely reasonable and not against the rules to have regard to party policy when making decisions on the planning committee. Despite that advice, Colin still made a statement at the end of the last committee meeting expressing his concerns, invalid though they were".
YT has attempted to contact cllr Churchman but he has not, at the time of publication, returned our communiques.
