| Topic: | STENCH of the TORIES prevails | |
| Posted by: | Steve Taylor | |
| Date/Time: | 18/10/11 16:24:00 |
| This thread started by Cllr Todd has become quite long but its interesting to note that he has now scuttled off as he has no more excuses or answers. It is important to note that the CURRENT problems being experienced by residents of Richmond and Hounslow are 100% the result of Tory Party ineptitude. Residents will never forget that Phil Andrews, Vince Cable, Ann Keen and the late Mike Carmen jointly succeeded in getting Ofwat to approve £42 million of ratepayer money to improve the site and cover all the Storm Tanks. Residents will never forget that when the Tories took control of the Council, the Tory Lead Member for Environment, without any consultation with residents or indeed her coalition partners, agreed with Thames Water to only cover 2 of the 8 tanks and thus allowed Thames to only spend £30 million of the allocated £42 million. Why she did that is anyone's guess. Why she permitted Thames to pocket the balance is anyone's guess. Why the Tory Council Leader didn't have his eye on the ball is anyone's guess. When residents held meetings with the Tory Leadership and explained the situation in explicit detail (together with the Parliamentary Candidate Mary Macleod) the Tories gave the impression of being willing to rectify this massive mistake by insisting that Thames covered all the remaining tanks as a condition of the planning application being considered. The Tories gave residents the impression that they would do just that..... End result - they did a cowardly u-turn and unanimously approved the application without any robust condition attached to covering the storm tanks which are now used constantly. Tories could and should have voted deferral and the application would have been thrown out and Thames Water would have covered the storm tanks immediately. That is a fact. Let's not forget that Cllr Hearn even admitted that he didn't understand the application so he "voted on a hunch" Not a single Tory Cllr bothered to even visit the site before voting. Cllr Barwood used the pathetic excuse that 'she had never been invited'. You couldn't make it up! |