Developer's Consultation or Insult-ation at Tadpole Farm?

It has been said by those holding a loftier position than a Residents' Association secretary that the developer's consultation, concerning the Tadpole Farm application, was an insult (see Councillors' quotes from Planning Committee, Cllr Dempsey).

Here is a quote from the developer's Statement of Community Engagement, Nov. 2011 (Tadpole Farm), a requirement of the Localism Act:

"In spite of encouraging local people to comment on the detail of community facilities and timing of facilities to provide at Tadpole Farm, there was a reluctance to engage at this level of detail by those living locally.  They were either insufficiently concerned to submit a view..whilst others had more fundamental concerns and could therefore not contemplate the development proceeding until their concerns had been addressed to their satisfaction."

Councillors' Quotes at Planning Committee - Cllr Dempsey

Cllr Mark Dempsey speaks after the Leader of the Labour Group, Cllr Jim Grant.  He introduces himself as a resident of St Andrews Ridge, Chair of St Andrews Ridge Residents' Association and Deputy Leader of the Labour Group. 

Cllr Dempsey makes a heartfelt statement about the developer's consultation which he describes as an insult to the residents:

"And I thought there was a failure, a deep failure of consultation – we weren’t consulted, frankly we were insulted.

Councillors' Quotes at Planning Committee - Cllr Faramarzi

Cllr Emma Faramarzi has been a local ward councillor in Priory Vale for just under two months.  In pre-election literature all three Conservative candidates for Priory Vale,  Cllr Mark Edward, Cllr Emma Faramarzi and Toby Elliott said:

"We'll fight the developers whose plans threaten to increase traffic levels, over-burden local services and concrete our countryside.  We will continue to oppose the current Tadpole Farm Application."

Toby Elliott and his website?

It has been brought to our attention recently that Toby Elliott posted this on his website during his campaign to become a Borough councillor:

"Saturday campaigning: Tadpole Lane"

"On Saturday myself and Councillor Emma Faramarzi joined Paul Exell and Kevin Lay from the Oakhurst Residents’ Association to collect signatures for a standard objection letter relating to Tadpole Farm".

We wish to clarify that he spent 90 minutes with ORA, as an Oakhurst resident, helping us to collect objections to the Tadpole Farm application.
We have looked into the matter and found that he never sought our consent to use our logo or written documents either in writing or verbally. Now that Councillor Toby Elliott has been elected to Swindon Borough Council we do not consent to our logo or any of our documents being used by him without our express written permission.

Councillors' Quotes at Planning Committee - Cllr Wakefield

One of the ward councillors who spoke at Planning Committee is Steve Wakefield (Mannington/Western).  His focus was the Purton/Iffley Road link:

"What I want to say tonight, Chair, is all about the Purton/Iffley Road link, or the Great Western link road as it is sometimes referred to."

Councillors' Quotes from Planning Committee - Cllr Elliott

ORA will be putting up a day-by-day account of the words spoken by our local councillors at the Planning Committee on Tuesday, 12th June 2012.  The decision to approve was taken by a number of councillors, not just one, and ward councillors from across North Swindon had a viewpoint on the decision.

We would like our membership to have a flavour of how the meeting went - in total it lasted for about 3 hours - to make up their own minds about how the decision was taken and by whom.

First of all ORA will concentrate on Cllr Elliott, Priory Vale Councillor and member of the Planning Committee, who proposed the application for approval with conditions:

Are you having a laugh Mr Bluh?

"I note the comments by other councillors and residents' association spokespersons about Tadpole Farm and I welcome their commitment to the Council's position". 

Political columnist (PC) Rod Bluh, in the Adver on 14th June 2012, appears somewhat confused about his role -whether as a PC or as a pundit/raconteur? As a PC he appears to have fallen into the age-old journalistic trap of never allowing the facts to get in the way of a good story.