TC Battlegrounds: Canvey Island North Ward

ON 3RD MAY 2007, residents of Canvey Island’s North Ward elected Doreen Anderson and Nick Harvey, both of the Canvey Island Independent Party (CIIP), to represent them on the new Canvey Island Parish Council. Both achieved very respectable results.

Doreen Anderson achieved 901 votes, just narrowly ahead of her colleague, Nick Harvey, on 890. Together, their votes accounted for 61.02 per cent of those cast.

The Conservatives achieved third and fourth place, with Pat Haunts on 489 and Laurence Martin achieving 372. Their combined vote represented 29.34 per cent of those voting.

Labour’s Mark Reilly brought up the rear with 283 votes, representing 9.64 per cent.

Neither Doreen Anderson, nor Nick Harvey, live in Canvey Island’s North Ward. Doreen lives with her husband, John Anderson (who is the CIIP’s current Town Council Chairman) in Church Parade – located in the neighbouring Winter Gardens Ward.

Little is known about Doreen’s political activity since being elected in 2007, apart from the letter she wrote to the Echo, in November 2009, entitled: Our overcrowded island cannot take any more.

Doreen Anderson serves on the Town Council’s Environment and Open Spaces committee, which is chaired by her husband, John. Last August, she suggested that CITC should look into an ‘Open Gardens Trail, as held elsewhere’. A suitable title, she went on to say, could be Canvey in Bloom.

It may have been her love of horticulture that led to her seconding Cllr Dixie’s proposal to elect Dave Blackwell, as the committee’s Vice Chairman, during the meeting where she made that proposal.

Nick Harvey is also CIIP Borough Councillor for Canvey Island North – although, like Doreen Anderson, he does not live in the ward. Nick lives in Westcliff Gardens (in Canvey Island East).

Nick took over as Town Council Chairman from the CIIP’s leader, Dave Blackwell, when the latter was forced to resign over the Julie Abel affair.

Nick is best known locally as owning his own Goods Driver Training firm on the island, and, back in 2007, being fined for swearing at one of his clients.

Canvey Island’s North ward abuts Canvey Lake on its south-western border – and it was under Harvey’s chairmanship that the Canvey Lake project was progressed. The Town Council had been increasingly looked upon as a talking-shop by locals during Dave Blackwell’s tenure the previous year - and Harvey was keen to disprove those allegations.

‘We’re all locals. We all live on Canvey,’ Harvey was quoted as saying, ‘and all the funds go to Canvey projects.’ But that was not strictly correct. An examination of the Town Council’s Bought Ledger, by this Blog, showed his last statement to be misleading regarding the employment of local firms.

Canvey Island North also includes Tewkes Creek, a stone throw’s away from where Dave Blackwell (the CIIP leader) resides, and the site where numerous trees were planted to improve the ward’s appearance with the unpaid help of many island children and volunteers. Over £6,000 of residents’ funds were spent on ‘Creeky Woods’ – only for two thirds of the new planting to subsequently die due to the soil conditions.

Canvey Island North ward contains some 2,668 dwellings with 5,979 residents averaging 42 years-old. Four-thousand five-hundred and twenty-four are Christians, with 17 Jewish, eight Muslim, five Buddhist and three Hindu. There were 19 ‘others’ in the 2001 census, 894 with no religion, and 509 residents whom did not wish to say.

Ten point one per cent of the population was under 10 years-old; 12.3 per cent were aged between 10 and 19; 10.3 per cent aged 20 to 29; 41.6 per cent aged 30 to 59; and 18.1 per cent aged 60 to 74. Seven point six per cent of the population was aged 75 and over.

Canvey Island’s North ward is categorised as having an average level of crime by Essex Police.