Coatham Protest

At a group meeting last night, some interesting things came out. First was that ENCIA, the company who were on site three years ago checking for unexploded mines around the areas where ZETICA were going to be testing for contaminants in the soil, were on site last week doing the same thing again. This time they were checking for what they called 'anomilies' (potential unexploded mines to you and me) around the areas where the tests for gas will be carried out. Once again, despite the councils and Persimmons spin and deceit, it is obvious that the area is still home to UNEXPLODED WW11 MINES, something that the council and Persimmon have tried every way that they can to play down, because as it states in their planning application, they have to clear the whole site of mines and doing this would be so costly the scheme would become unviable.

The second thing to come out was that the dancers who use the Coatham Bowl were told that the Bowl will be demolished in March next year and work will start on the 'leisure' in the first phase of the development along with 102 houses. This is funny, because in their "peoples pride and progress" magazine from just eight weeks ago, the council have already stated that the building of the leisure has been moved to phase two of the development? This coincides with the recent Gazette article that reported that the nursery behind the Bowl is closing next week and people saying that the building of a nursery had been moved back to phase two of the development. What are you supposed to believe?

The third thing that came to light at our meeting was information taken from a leaked letter from Ian Hopley to the Environment Agency, that showed that Persimmon haven't even done the required flood risk assesment for the site, let alone submit plans for an adequate sea defence. Submitting plans for an adequate sea defence was the absolute minimum requirement on the issue of flooding.
The council telling concerned dancers that everything is starting for definite in March next year when no plans for a sea defence have been submitted, no flood risk assesment been done and three court cases are looming over them regarding this housing scheme, is optimistic to say the least.
When you take into consideration that the council are now having to borrow millions and millions of pounds to pay the dinnerladies of Redcar and Cleveland and when they have a twelve million pound black hole in their budget that they have to fill, how on earth can they hope to borrow another TEN MILLION FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS to provide leisure in the Coatham Scheme as was reported in the cabinet briefing documents for last Tuesdays cabinet meeting, because they have attracted NO FUNDING WHATSOEVER? How much money do this council intend borrowing? How much do they intend to raise our council tax?

Optimistic is the wrong word to describe the councils plans for Coatham. I should have said, telling the dancers who use the Bowl that everything is going to begin next March. is just an impossibility.