This time, it is about the number of residential flats to be created in order to support Town Centre businesses. And, again, the mischievous Blackwell bases his concerns on the Borough Council’s Core Strategy that was derived under the duress of the last Labour government - and which now lies in tatters.
Blackwell, it appears, has no confidence in the Borough Council’s Planning Committee being able to forestall unwanted developer plans while that strategy is under review – despite his own membership of that body, and their recent rejection of Barrett’s plans in Thundersley.
Blackwell is reported as saying: ‘No one on Canvey knows about the real number of flats planned for the town centre,’ which begs the question: why is he raising the issue if he, also, is clueless?
Well, Blackwell obviously has his reasons. He is still casting around for an issue that can save his party the next local elections due in May, and, since Canvey Town Centre’s regeneration project is set to attract a great deal of press coverage during the intervening period, Blackwell and his chum Neville Watson are keen to latch onto it as a means of securing badly needed publicity. Unfortunately, the disruptive nature of their particular form of party politics prevents CIIP councillors from adding anything constructive to the local debate.
Despite evidence that pedestrianising High Streets has them morph into virtual no-go areas at night – attracting vandals, rapists and drug-dealers – the Town Council is intent upon ignoring the wishes of some 4,000 informed residents whom have taken the trouble to visit the town’s Canvey Comes Alive shop, and Website, to make their wishes known. Instead, driven by John Anderson (the Town Council’s leader) they intend to spend more residents’ money providing all islanders with a ‘postal vote,’ carefully phrased, to support the idea of paving the High Street over.
The fact that the majority receiving an invitation to ‘vote’ do not use the Town Centre for their weekly shop is, apparently, irrelevant.
And now, Blackwell and Watson are set on ensuring that the new Town Centre facilities lack the very customers which local businesses need to survive, grow, and flourish. They are against providing sufficient new flats to which elderly islanders can move to and access local services easier. And they are against any well-heeled, new blood, bringing their scarce resources into the Town and supporting local businesses.
’Canvey for Canvey, people,’ is Blackwell’s continuing cry.
What that means is: no progress; no support for elderly residents; no new homes for our children; no secure future for local businesses – and a new Town Centre that attracts the dregs of society as dusk falls, and residents fear to venture onto their streets.
Blackwell’s posing and twittering would be laughable – if the issue were not so serious. But, then, residents get what they vote for. In this case a dream team in which CIIP councillors live firmly in an imagined past.
The 21st Century, it seems, is a complete anathema to Blackwell’s bumbling luddites.
If you could guarantee the flats planned are for just the elderly,the people of canvey might not mind so much, but what u can't or don't want to see is that canvey is over populated as it is, so we don't want anymore flats or houses or any other type of residential property on our Island, if there was an emergency on canvey most people would be stranded because there is only 2 ways off canvey and they off the same roundabout, the people down the point would be the worst off and there are alot of care homes there so what is going to happen to them, it seems that you have not taken any of this into consideration or that you don't give a stuff.
ReplyDeleteOh that old chestnut.
ReplyDeleteDon’t you think it is just a little bit staid to keep preying upon residents' fears of something that happened nearly 60 years ago? If the island is such a dangerous place to live, I wonder you don't pack up and move.
We all want a third road off the island to make our working lives easier and insure against a castrophe but the only way that is going to happen is if there is a clear case of need and that aint gonna happen before new homes are erected and the effect of current improvements have been assessed. At the moment islanders make do.
And please don’t say we need a third road in case we need to evacuate because of a poisonous cloud from the refineries. Residents trying to leave the island under those circumstances will die at the wheel and block up all the roads for everyone else.
Is an island flood evacuation the best argument against new homes your party can make?
Hang on, who said Ian Day is a member of a Political Party Cynical? He is only writing what most Islanders think, be they right or wrong.
ReplyDeleteYou don't recognise An Indy's style - or the poor attempt at an anagram Colin?
ReplyDeleteMaybe Ted could check his old Wordpress logs.
If I am wrong I will apologise.
The IP address is different, Cynical. And that unique component of that person's signature, surprisingly, is not there. Other than that, the style is identical.
ReplyDeleteI suggest we let readers decide:-
'Hi Ted can i just say now all the dust has settled as leader of canvey island independent party i have always tried to work with the ruling group for the benifit of the residents of canvey island .people who attack me dont even know me i have lived on canvey all my life and i love the place and want to help inprove it for the better and i will work with anyone who wants the same .i just wish the leadership of the council in benfleet would except the canvey peoples decision and work with us . and i hope rebecca will to .Dave'
Thanks Ted.
ReplyDeleteI rest my case.