5 March 2010
Conservative Candidate for Witham constituency Priti Patel has been accused of extraordinary political opportunism by Green Councillors. She has issued a press release condemning the recent decision to grant planning permission for the waste plant on Rivenhall Airfield. But Green Councillors are pointing to the strong involvement of members of her own party in pushing for the incinerator on Rivenhall Airfield to be built and the failure of Ms Patel and Brookes Newmark MP to give evidence against the waste plant either at committee meetings at County Hall or at the 2009 Planning Inquiry.
Ms Patel has claimed that the decision to give planning permission was due to the Government.
Whilst it is true that the Government is in favour of "energy from waste", the Conservatives are also in favour of waste burning at a national and local level.
The decision by the Secretary of State merely endorses the report of the 2009 Inquiry Inspector. The Secretary of State cannot overturn the Inspector's Report without strong planning or legal reasons for doing so - it cannot be a political decision.
In attacking the Government, the Conservatives also appear to have forgotten that it was former Government Minister Hazel Blears who required an Inquiry to take place after representations from hundreds of local residents.
Green Party Councillor and parliamentary candidate for Witham, James Abbott said
"The reality is that the Conservatives are the MAIN CAUSE of Rivenhall facing the very impacts that Ms Patel complains about - the prospect of one of the largest waste sites in Europe in the midst of our local villages and countryside.
It is extraordinary political opportunism for the Conservatives to try and gain political credit in these circumstances.
Myself and colleagues sat through every day of the 2009 Planning Inquiry and many people commented to us that Priti Patel and Brookes Newmark, the current MP for Braintree, did not give evidence to the Inquiry to try and stop the plant being built. Neither did the local Tory County Councillors. If the Tories are against the plant, why did they stay silent during the Inquiry when they could have joined us in opposing the plans ? Where were they during the long months of leafletting, fund raising and local meetings?
I would suggest that the Tories are trying to create a smokescreen for their long support for a major waste plant at County Hall.
The Green Party is today releasing a 10 point dossier of the planning history of the site which proves beyond doubt that the Tories are responsible for the situation that local residents now face:
1. County Councils are responsible for deciding planning applications on waste infrastructure and for preparing plans for future land use for waste plants. Against fierce local opposition, Tory controlled Essex County Council has for years been supporting a major waste plant on Rivenhall Airfield and has twice granted planning permission for waste developments there, including the incinerator.
In granting consent on 24th April 2009 for the incinerator, the Tories ignored over 800 local objections from residents and decided instead to side with the one person who had written in to support the plans. ONLY Tory councillors voted for the application.
So to quote Ms Patel, it was Tory councillors who rode roughshod over local concerns in relation to environmental impact, the increase of traffic that will result in such a development being undertaken, and the undoubted detrimental impact on local residents.
2. Not only did Tory Councillors at Essex County Council vote FOR the incinerator at their planning meeting on 24th April 2009, the Tory chairman of the committee who represents a ward in the south of Essex voted TWICE to ensure the application was granted by 5 votes to 4.
3. Tory Essex County Council has been in detailed discussions with the applicant for years, including signing a joint Confidentiality Agreement. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Green Party has obtained hundreds of pages of details of correspondance and discussions, including agreements, between ECC and Gent Fairhead.
4. Tory Essex County Council backed the incinerator at the Inquiry in October 2009 and hired a barrister who urged the Inspector to grant permission. This was despite the County Council stating in public that it would only be at the Inquiry to assist with the proceedings and not to take sides. The barrister questioned James Abbott about him being a Green Party councillor, for reasons that the County Council have not properly explained.
5. A Freedom of Information request from a resident of Kelvedon revealed that Tory Essex County Council expected to spend up to £90,000 on the Inquiry - the council taxes of local people being used to support a plan which the vast majority of local residents oppose.
6. Priti Patel and the Conservatives now appear to be trying to claim they oppose the incinerator plan. Yet neither Priti Patel, nor Brookes Newmark MP attended the 24th April 2009 committee meeting at Essex County Council to speak against the plans.
7. Neither Priti Patel nor Brookes Newmark nor the local Tory County Councillors spoke at the Inquiry in October 2009 which sat for 3 weeks - giving them plenty of time to present a statement. They were fully aware that the Inquiry was taking place and yet chose not to speak out against the plans. By comparison, local members of the community and local district and parish councillors did attend day after day and did speak and present evidence against the plans.
8. Tory former Leader of Essex County Council, Lord Hanningfield, gave a written pledge, which he repeated in the House of Lords, that there would be no incineration in Essex without a referendum. That referendum has never been held.
9. The Tories at County Hall deliberately included waste burning in their Essex Waste Strategy, which paved the way for the planning application for the incinerator on Rivenhall Airfield. The applicants quoted the County Council's support for a waste burning plant in their application. The Tories also deliberately modelled a waste burning plant at Rivenhall Airfield in their first Waste PFI bid with very specific details about its size and about importing waste from Basildon - exactly as appeared in the planning application.
10. The applicant for the Rivenhall waste site and incinerator is Gent Fairhead, the Chief Executive of which is also a prominent Tory - a well known London Councillor and local landowner. He stood for the Tories in 2005 as a parliamentary candidate at the General Election and is currently featured on the Conservative national website.
No Tory Councillors at any of the meetings which discussed planning applications for Rivenhall Airfield declared any interests in relation to the fact that the applicant was a prominent member of the Tory Party and a serving Tory Councillor.
Cllr. James Abbott added
"It is no wonder that the public feel they cannot trust politicians from the main parties when the Tories attempt a trick such as the recent statement by the Witham Conservatives. The Tories are up to their necks in this one and few will be fooled by them trying to divert attention from the actions of their own party members.
Green Councillors have consistently opposed the waste site plans, not just in the last few days, but since the 1990s when we first alerted the local community to the incinerator threat and subsequently faced denouncements - and accusations of scaremongering from no less than Lord Hanningfield.
We will continue to fight the plans and will continue to work with local communities - there are still many opportunites to prevent this unwanted development in the countryside which if built would blight our rural communities and add hundreds of HGVs on to local roads every day"
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