About two or three weeks ago, I was dismayed when I realized I had posted nothing since January, so I took the Blog down. However, those of you who follow Streetlife will know there is currently a long ongoing conversation titled "Green Belt under the protection of Sir Paul Beresford?" which began six days ago. The conversation has attracted very many responses and different parts of the Green Belt have come under consideration.
Three or four days back, Cllr Howard Jones, North Leatherhead Conservative, joined the conversation and, among other things, used it as another opportunity to smear the Cherkley Campaign. All the indications are that Longshot are not interested in continuing any such campaign and want to get on with constructing the golf course. It, therefore, seems odd to me that this Conservative councillor chooses not to be magnanimous in victory but to continue to smear Cherkley Campaign.
I refer to his posting of three days ago. His first paragraph is so inaccurate one hardly knows where to begin. So let us start with his "I refer to the member conduct complaint that was dismissed." This must refer to the complaints made to the Council about Cllr Rosemary Dickson who, in the view many people, had strongly supported the Longshot application and then was not only allowed to take part in the debate of the Development Control Meeting on 4th April 2012 but she actually took the lead in proposing to reject the Officers' Report which advised the Council to oppose the application. But this was nothing to do with Cherkley Campaign, nor could it have been for the simple reason that Cherkley Campaign did not exist at that time. The complaints were made by the Leatherhead Residents' Association and by certain named individuals. This is all quite clear in the report that the Standards Committee initiated on 30th April 2012.
To what extent the Report dismissed the complaints we cannot know since the Report has been kept under wraps and has not, as far as I am aware, even been referred back to the Standards Committee itself. Is the Report really so toxic that not even members of that Committee may see it? As Skylark pointed out on Streetlife, if the report completely clears Cllr Dickson, as she has claimed on several occasions, why cannot the Report be made public?
When Cllr Jones says "the fact that for some reason despite massive coverage of the Cherkley Campaign the Leatherhead Advertiser was constantly qualifying, apologising & clarifying", those of us who remember the edition of the Leatherhead Advertiser which came out after the Appeal Court ruling, with its four page wrapper whose first page looked just like the front page of the actual newspaper and gave all the appearance of massive endorsement of Longshot's development of the golf course and luxury hotel, must have pinched themselves and asked if he was being serious. The claim that the Cherkley Campaign is "clearly all over the editorial team of a small circulation local paper" is both ludicrous and completely false..
He then adds "[T]he fact that they pursued private legal actions against individuals who had the temerity to be on the other side of the argument." The Cherkley Campaign has not pursued a private legal action against any individual.
The only private legal action against an individual that I am aware of is that taken by, if I recall correctly, three of the people who had complained about the behaviour of Cllr Dickson; the action was taken because her statement issued after the Lingard Report was, in their opinion, libellous. But, once again, I repeat that this had nothing to do with the Cherkley Campaign; it was an action taken by private individuals.
Cllr Jones' second paragraph is surprising, especially in view that he is a barrister. Is it not reasonable that, if someone or some group has won a case in the courts, that person or group does not want the losing side to go to appeal? It is, apparently, quite legitimate for developers like Longshot and PR companies like Cratus Communications to lobby the Council, but it seems individuals and pressure groups are wrong to do so. That is surely a blatant example double standards.
I, with many others, was in the Council Chamber when the debate took place to decide whether the Council would appeal or not. There was no demonstration and no interruption from members of the public. There was no name calling, no insulting the other side, and certainly no indication that any councillor felt anyone had tried to limit their freedom of speech. The various councillors made their points in a civilized manner, unlike the conversation currently taking place on Streetlife.
In his third paragraph, Cllr Jones say:
1. he doesn't like people who play the man as well as the ball - obviously no fan of American football, then. But, more seriously, the Cherkley Campaign did not play the man (or woman); it played the ball and to the best of my knowledge, played it according to the rules.
2. he does not like people trying to limit their opponents freedom to criticize. Neither, Cllr Jones, do I! But it is a travesty to claim that Cherkley Campaign tried to limit the freedom speech of elected councillors. How could it have done?
3. he is "not a fan of people who were clearly all over the editorial team of a small circulation local paper." This accusation is quite false and I have drawn it to the attention of the editor of that newspaper.
I urge you, dear readers, to read carefully (and more than once) Bette Noir's posting to the Streetlife conversation. She explains with great clarity the many reasons for unquiet over the whole Cherkley business. She has also posted today a a corrective to Cllr Jones' posting; do please read it.
Finally, may I say that it affords me no pleasure whatever to be criticizing an elected councillor in this way? But, as Bette Noir, says, Cherkley Campaign and anyone else who dared to question the Council over this matter have, in the past, been denigrated by some (not all) of our councillors and our MP. It seems Cllr Jones is determined to continue to denigrate us in the same way. This seems to me very surprising behaviour with elections just four days away!
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