Friday, June 23, 2006

Message from Chris Mcglade.

In August 2004 I started a campaign to save Coatham Common and our fantastic coastline from a 357 Persimmon home housing estate. I have just watched on the history channel a programme called Coast. This stretch of beach and this area was described as an "oasis in the middle of industrial Teesside". Internationally famous folk singer Vin Garbutt described it as "as much a haven for human beings as it is wildlife".

Our campaign has been long and hard and at times vocal, but that is all. It is our right to protest and our right to be vocal in that protest. This country is founded on struggle and protest from the tolpuddle martyrs to the suffragette movement, from CND to fathers for justice! This country has a history and a tradition of protest and demonstration. I believe,that it highlights the people of this country's determination to be governed fairly and justly and truthfully. As a result,the democracy and the fairness that a lot of people take for granted in this country is envied all around this world. But we as a people have had to fight for it.

We have fought in our town for Coatham. However,we have always remained within the law.I shouted at a scrutiny meeting in 2004 and I shouted at demonstration we held at the council's exhibition in 2005. Being noisy is the limit towhich we have gone to as a protest group. I am glad that we have because we have been heard, and by many thousands of people in the town and borough who like us, are very concerned about what is happening here in Redcar and Cleveland.

The letter below from Colin Moore is abhorrent to me and it should be to anyone who values truth, democracy and fairness.

This man is a blatant liar. This letter proves this. We have never threatened or intimidated any member of the council and we have never,ever behaved in a violent manner in any way towards anyone. If we had do you think that this paranoid council, who now employ doormen to patrol their council meetings, would have hesitated to have us arrested?

The 'dirty tricks' have been perpetuated by these people in charge of our town hall. These dirty tricks have ranged from starting a whispering campaign that I was a member of the BNP, which I am not nor ever have been, to spraying the common with poison after the environmental study we had had done showed the prescence of rare lizards and bats, to threatening the administrator of Redcar.net with possible legal action if he did not bar me from the site( because I was bringing too many facts out into the public domain ) to threatening a Redcar printer if they gave me the Informer to distribute, to Colin Moore writing this lie filled letter to the MP in order to try and get her onside. A letter that shows him subventing the council and acting as a politician,something that is well outside his remit.

This is the true face of this council. A council that is now being run on fear and mistrust and dirty tricks and secrecy and lies and bullying and intimidation and deceit. A council that is spiralling into the depths whilst those at the top try con people into thinking differently. They try to put a shiny veneer on the rotten core that lies beneath. Not only have I and our group been subject to the real face of this council, employees of this council have risked their positions to come forward to tell the real truth about what is going on in RCBC. From people in lofty positions within the council to kitchen staff and office staff. All see Colin Moore as being the architect of this rotten empire, where the councils code of conduct and its constitution is flouted and the guilty go unpunished, remaining in their positions of power to carry on these abuses. They accuse everyone else, they blame everyone else but it is they who are the guilty ones.

I love Redcar and I love Coatham. This place is my home and I have fought with all the passion and heart that I could have possibly mustered. I urge those within the council to search your hearts and fight with us too. I am asking for anyone who is privvy to any illegal actions that have or are taking place within the council to come forward and give the information to us. Your anonymity is assured. I believe, as do a lot of other people too, from people working for major property developers in the South to legal people, to policemen, to people within the council itself that there is a really bad smell in this council and that things are definately not as they should be.

If the environment agency state that councils should be diverting developers like Persimmon away from areas like Coatham because of the high risk of flooding, but this council have bent over backwards to actively encourage them to the point where they have committed themselves to spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on half of the biggest and richest builder's consultancy fees and all of their legal fees which is an undisclosed amount just to keep their 'confidence', then seriously: WHAT DOES THAT SAY TO YOU?

Please, if you have information that can answer this question contact us.

Do it for the town, do it for the area, but most of all do it for your children and your grandchildren who will ultimately inherit what we are fighting for now. Openness, honesty, truth and transparency in local government and a coastline that will remain that "oasis in the middle of industrial Teesside, that haven for wildlife and human beings for as long as the sea decides not to reclaim it.





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