Coatham Protest

The final curtain has come down...

2010-05-26T03:51:00.000-07:00

I wrote the last two postings " do you remember when you used to play spot the ball " and "The whole thing descends into farce " a couple of days ago but I only decided to post them today.

Please read them both carefully. Because at yesterday's cabinet meeting, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council offered A SEVENTH explanation for not discussing the options for Coatham.

The 'official' version, and I say official because it was the version of things that was given at the cabinet meeting and therefore presumably minuted, was that the options for Coatham weren't going to be discussed because the cabinet, upon the request of opposition councillors, wanted to show opposition councillors from the Lib Dems, Conservatives and Independents the options first so that they could have their opinions taken into consideration and then a special cabinet meeting was to be held in approximately three weeks time, to discuss the options in public.

We were told by the cabinet that items for cabinet meetings change and alter all the time, this may be the case, but the reasons for either including or not including this item is what is in question here and the frequency of the council chopping and changing their minds, over whether or not to discuss these options in public yesterday, clearly shows that there is something that they are very unsure or worried about.

The Coatham issue was discussed at the very start of the meeting with a very bullish chairman George Dunning, appearing to try and provoke comment from myself and other members of our group from the off. He stated that a mistake had been made over the discussion of the Coatham options and that the options item was always going to be discussed in public, just not on that day. He went onto say that the council was prepared to let questions be asked by the public because they wanted to be open and transparent but then made an uncalled for, throw away statement in response to Charles Davis, to the effect that the council "were always prepared to talk to people even if those people didn't want to talk to them". This prompted Charles to ask the question who are you talking about? and say that he hoped that George Dunning wasn't talking about our group because we have never refused to talk to the council over this issue.

George Dunning said that he wasn't talking about us, but he didn't say who he had been referring to either? It was obvious that he was trying to make a snide remark but one can only guess as to why? He handed things over to Councillor Mark Hannon who then told us that there were two options for Coatham and that's when we learned that they weren't going to be discussed because of a request from the opposition to see them first before they were discussed publicly.

I remember thinking at the time that that excuse for not discussing the item yesterday was a bit odd as when did the councils ruling cabinet ever want to defer discussing a subject because the opposition asked them to? More than that, I thought that it was very odd that the ruling Labour/Independent cabinet should want to get the opinions of members of the opposition before making a decision about something? When have members of an opposition group ever been involved in the cabinet decision making process which is controlled by a different political group?

Or do we have a coalition of all parties just for this one issue, then it all goes back to normal again with the opposition having no say and having their opinions totally disregarded?

I stood up to talk.

I started by telling everybody in the room that I didn't want there to be any acrimony between the two groups anymore. I started to say that we had our point of view and the council had theirs over Coatham, but when I went onto say that we had only opposed something that ex MP Vera Baird had described as a disaster and George Dunning had described as tainted, I was immediately interrupted and shouted down by both George Dunning and Mark Hannon who said that and I quote " I was living in the past, I should move on, it was time to move on " and I wasn't able to proceed with what I had wanted to say.

They obviously didn't want these things to be said at a cabinet meeting in front of the press even though they are fact.

I attempted to explain that I had only been trying to set out the background and that I had to do that in order to say that these things aren't relevant now because it's time to move forward and come together. But throughout me even saying this, Mark Hannon was very forcefully asserting that our group had stopped the town having a baths, that there were two fantastic options on the table and that people should get behind them and that, and I quote, "people in Redcar were sick of you ( me )".

I did not rise to these unsubstantiated remarks and responded by saying that what people were sick of in Redcar was being shown a lack of respect by the council and treated with contempt.

I said they were sick of being shown a lack of respect by a Chief Executive Officer who refuses to respond to peoples genuine concerns in emails and letters that they send to her, they're sick of being given seven different versions of one single issue and they are sick of the council blaming other people for their mistakes. I ended by saying to him that the council have always been borrowing the money to build a swimming pool in Redcar, so why did they use it as a carrot to dangle to get people to go along with the houses that no-one wanted? And that if the council are borrowing fourteen million pounds to build a pool, then just get on and build it now, what are they waiting for, infact why have we had to wait for it so long when they're borrowing the money to build it?

At this point the chairman brought in Sheelagh Clarke who told us that she didn't want any acrimony either and that items for meetings change all the time. Another resident, John Wilkinson, had asked to speak and the chair had indicated that he could, but before he brought him in, he brought in councillor Dave McCluckie who moved that the item had been discussed long enough and that the meeting should move on, it was seconded and John wasn't allowed to make his comments or ask his questions.

After the meeting I spoke with the political editor of the Gazette Sandy Mackenzie who had been present throughout, it will be interesting to see his report in the paper.

When I was on my own later on yesterday, I sat and mulled over the last six years and how I felt now. I felt that for all of the highly questionable and exremely dubious things that have taken place over the issue of Coatham, that perhaps it was time to draw a line under things and just accept that no investigation is ever going to be carried out over the issue of the scandal known as the Coatham Enclosure Scheme.

All the main players and protagonists have all but left, the scheme has been abandoned and there are two new options on the table and not only that, the MP who was protecting the council and helping them whitewash the issue, has been ousted by an honest and decent Redcar Man. The will, the momentum to investigate the disgraceful things that have taken place here regarding Coatham has ebbed, and is ebbing still further away so I thought that perhaps it is time to let go?

Councillor Valerie Halton, a Conservative councillor from Guisborough, came to speak with Charlie after the meeting. She re-iterated that there were two options for Coatham and Charlie said so what are they? "Well, if you ask Ian Wardle he will tell you she replied, they're in the public domain" "Thats the thing Charlie responded, he won't". Councillor Halton then told us that the two options for Coatham were either to build a new leisure centre and pool or build a new leisure centre, pool and a new civic centre ( Town Hall ). If they were the options we thought, then why on earth all the secrecy? Why the chopping and changing and the yes the options are being discussed no they arent?

I have never spoken to Valerie Halton before. I have always gotten the feeling, on the odd occasion when we have been in the same room over the last six years, that she most definitely didn't want to. When she had told us what the options were, I spoke to her.

I told her that I had never had the pleasure of talking to her before, but that no matter what had happened in the past, as far as I was concerned it was in the past and that it was time to move on. I told her that they had had their point and we had had ours, that we had been advisaries but we always wanted what was best for Redcar and now that we had a blank canvass in Coatham, it was time to all make sure that we did.

I held out my hand in friendship and she shook it. I said and did the same with Mark Hannon.

For me, yesterday meant that the Coatham Enclosure campaign was over. It felt over. The battle to stop the houses blighting our coastline has been won and a new baths, something that I have wanted since the last one was knocked down in 1997, the same year I streaked at Wembley to save the one we had, is on the way. Our group have been completely vindicated by the Supreme Court, the highest court in England ruling unanimously in our favour. I even had the opportunity of saying things to the councils cabinet, with the CEO and senior officers in attendance, that I have wanted to say for some time, maybe even as long as five years.

What do I hope for the future?

I hope that the council learn lessons and that they never again underestimate the people of our fantastic town and area.

I hope that they are open and transparent and I hope that they consult properly with the public and that more importantly, they listen, because I don't think that the public would allow themselves to be ignored again and I don't think that the council should be foolish enough to ignore that fact.

I hope that the Coatham Bowl is kept. It has one of the finest spring loaded dance floors in the country and I hope that it is regenerated and utilised for dancing and concerts something for which it has always been famous. I also hope, as do thousands of other people, that it is kept because as it was stated in the Nathaniel Lichfield report of 2006, it is one of only three tourist attractions in our town and because as Rachel and I demonstrated in 2005 when we put Walter Trout on at the Bowl, a musician who was voted the sixth best guitarist in the world, we had 1100 people in there and they came from all over the country. Even Sting has fond memories of the Bowl. It should be kept and enhanced as a valuable asset to our town.

I hope that they tidy up the common and make it into a fantastic open area for children and families to use, perhaps even some sort of park?

But most of all, I hope that all parties can work together for what is best for our town and I hope that all things can be done in an open and transparent manner. The public have become so much more aware and so much more prepared to get involved in things that will try and enhance our town since our campaign began, this spirit should be harnessed. There are now two options on the table for Coatham and there is a new initiative that is on the table from Redcarpet Developments, a non profit making organization who want to involve the whole town in trying to regenerate the towns high street itself. It's all really positive and exciting and in order for it to become a reality, we have to all forget our differences.

So to George Dunning, Mark Hannon, Vera Moody, Chris Abbott et all, there's my hand...it's time for us to forgive and forget, time to act responsibly but most importantly of all, time to act like adults.

Remember when you used to play spot the ball?

2010-05-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

Do you remember when you used to play spot the ball? You made little crosses all over a picture of a few footballers about to kick a football and hopefully your cross landed on the centre of the ball ( which was invisible ) Well...it seems that Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council adopt the same spot the ball mentality when dealing with items that they really would prefer we didnt ask questions about. Here are six different versions of what they have told different people they were going to do, regarding discussing the options for Coatham at a cabinet meeting to be held today.

Who knows where the real truth lies?

1. The leader of the council told a member of the public by email on the 23rd of April, that the Coatham options section of the cabinet meeting on the 25th of May, would be open to the public because there was nothing confidential to discuss hence all items were on white papers.

2. However a week or so after this, the Coatham options section was omitted from the agenda for the cabinet meeting stating that the press and public would be exluded from these discussions and that it wouldn't be open to them?

3. Senior council officer Alan Logan backed this up by telling a member of our group that the Coatham options section would be discussed behind closed doors because there were commercially sensitive issues to be discussed that were tied into the options and AMAZINGLY that it wasn't in the best interests of the public to know?

4. The Gazettes political editor Sandy Mckenzie told me in an email on Friday last week ( 21st May ) that he had informed by 'the council' that the Coatham options section would be held in public again?

5. A senior councillor and cabinet member told a member of our group on Sunday night ( 23rd May ) that the Coatham options section of the cabinet meeting had been split into two. The options for Coatham were just going to be put forward at a date in the near future and then the confidential items would be discussed at a special meeting of the cabinet in about three weeks time.

6. On Monday the 24th May the head of regeneration and Alan Logans boss, Ian Wardle, then tells a member of our group that the Coatham options won't even be discussed because they haven't had time to prepare the papers for the meeting but that they would be discussed at another cabinet meeting to be held in three weeks time and the press and public will not be excluded?

Which one do you want to pick as being the truth? Does this sort of behaviour really constitute openness and transparency in local government?

The whole issue descends into farce...

2010-05-24T20:31:00.000-07:00

I did not think when I made my last entry on this site, that Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council could make themselves look any more contradictory than they have already made themselves look, not only over the issue of Coatham, but over the issue of discussing the options for Coatham at the cabinet meeting yesterday.

How wrong I was.

On Sunday night and then again on Monday morning, we were given another two different versions of what is going to happen and why, along with even more contradictory statements about what has already taken place regarding this scheme, from a senior councillor within the council and the head of regeneration council officer Ian Wardle.

On Sunday night at around 6.00pm, a senior councillor telephoned a member of our group and asked if he could come round to his house to talk. The councillor told the member of our group that the Coatham options section of the meeting had infact, been split into two. The options were going to be put forward at some time in the near future and then the confidential items of the Coatham options was going to be discussed at a cabinet meeting to be arranged at a later date and kept behind closed doors.

When quizzed about why any of it was being kept from the public, the councillor explained that there were confidential matters to sort out and discuss. But as our member pointed out that the councilor, in doing this, were actually going against their own constitution as there were no contracts involved in the options for Coatham because they were only options, and the Coatham scheme was dead and buried.

The councillor agreed that the Coatham scheme was indeed dead although he did say that Persimmon had expressed an interest to build on the car park at Majuba Road. However, he went onto say that the council had resisted this because the council had realised what an asset the car park is and that it was a 'jewel in the crown' as people from all over the country came to that car park to use the fabulous beach there.

Strange that he should make this comment when we have been saying this for nearly six years, and it was demonstrated to great effect in Craig Hornby's film " Coatham a common concern ", yet the council never once listened to us and ignored all the things we were saying about the car park being so vital to the town and to tourism here?

The councillor then went onto say that the council were prepared to meet with the small group of members of our group but that certain councillors weren't prepared to meet with me or John Wilkinson, a man who has done so much research and who has exposed so many facts about the disaster known as the Coatham Enclosure scheme. To this the member of our group told him that John had never been on the list to attend the meeting with the council anyway, but I on the other hand had started the campaign and led from the front all the way to victory in the Supreme Court and that there was no way that he, or anyone else, would meet the council without me being present.

I later said to the member of our group, that if it meant that a way forward could be charted then I would step aside, but he was insistant and said that we would not be divided by these people when we had already won in the Supreme Court and they were the ones who had been found to be wrong. He told me that he had told the senior councillor that I might have gotten up the noses of individuals within the council, but at the end of the day, all of the things that I and our group have said have been true and that the council should accept that.

The meeting finished with the councillor telling our member that he would be back in touch with him on Monday night.

As elected and paid members and officers of a local authority, it is incredible to think that they regard themselves as being so high and mighty? It is incredible to think that they can adopt such a lofty position when their failings have been exposed at every turn and ultimately they have been left with their reputation seriously damaged by the Supreme Courts unanimous ruling and the things that have been brought out into the public domain as a result of our six year campaign.

If Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness can sit round the table with Ian Paisley and laugh and discuss together when each of their communities had been murdering each other for decades, if the US and British governments can befriend Colnel Gadaffi when he has been behind murders that have been committed on British soil and around the world, then why do Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council think that they are above meeting just a normal resident who stood up for what he believed in and with the help of a large number of people, peacefully and democratically and within the law, defeated a councils and the countries largest developers, disastrous plans for his home town?

Once again, shame on them for displaying such arrogance.

But the best was to come on Monday morning.

For some time now, the same member of our group had been trying to contact the head of regeneration, Ian Wardle, to ask him certain questions about the scheme, to ask him when the common would be tidied up and more recently, to ask him about the Coatham part of todays cabinet meeting. This morning Mr Wardle called him. Bearing in mind we had already had four versions of what was happening at the meeting today, Mr Wardle MIRACULOUSLY OFFERED A FIFTH!!!

He told our member that the Coatham options section of the cabinet meeting wasn't now going to be discussed because it wasn't even going to be included!

He said that it wasn't going to be included because the papers for yesterdays cabinet meeting hadn't even been prepared because they hadn't had time? and he told our member that the Coatham options section was going to be discussed at a special cabinet meeting, in public, in approximately three weeks time?

Our member at this point, stopped him and told Mr Wardle that he had had a senior councillor in his house just 18 hours previous to him telephoning, and he had told him that the Coatham options section was being split into two and that part of it was going to be heard at a later date behind closed doors?

He also pointed out to Mr Wardle that another senior officer in his own department Alan Logan, had told him that it was going to be discussed behind closed doors and that it was to be that way because it wasn't in the best interests of the public for them to know. He also told him that as late as last week, the Gazettes political editor Sndy Mackenzie, had been informed by the council that the options for Coatham would be discussed but that they would be discussed in public?

Our member went onto tell Mr Wardle that was it any wonder that the public had such little trust in this council when even in defeat, secrecy and contradiction were so prominent and FIVE different versions had been offered, by different people within the council, about ONE subject?

I believe Mr Wardle was being economical with the truth.

If the papers for yesterdays meeting hadn't even been prepared, then why did George Dunning tell another member of our group in an email, that he had seen nothing confidential to discuss about Coatham, hence the issues for discussion were all on white papers? If the papers hadn't been prepared then why did it say in the councils agenda for the meeting, that the press and public were to be excluded and that the confidential papers were to follow?

Amazingly Mr Wardle, as the head of regeneration and a man whos salary would top approximately £100,000 pa, stated that he had no knowledge about any of the other statements that had been made about this subject? How can he not know about or be responsible for things that someone in his own department has already stated before him? How could these things differ so greatly? All Mr Wardle knew is that the options for Coatham now wouldn't even be a part of the meeting.

It is obvious after we have publicly demonstrated, step by step, every contradiction that these people have made, when we have issued a press release about this level of secrecy, that Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council started to sing the song to suit the tune and that they tried to do all they could to beat a hasty retreat from what had become a very 'hot' subject and were trying to give themselves a bit of breathing space to work out what to do next.

But thats not all.

When asked by our member where Persimmon Homes were in all of this, Mr Wardle told our member that because the development agreement had been rendered useless by the Supreme Courts decision, Persimmon were now no longer involved at any level. Our member, once again told Mr Wardle that his response was strange because it differed completely with what the senior councillor and cabinet member had told him just the night before?

He told Mr Wardle that according to the senior councillor, Persimmon had expressed not only an interest in building on the car park, they also had expressed an interest to build the new leisure centre and pool? Even though it went completely against what he had just said, Mr Wardle then admitted that Persimmon had expressed an interest in these things?

"But you have just said that they weren't in the picture anymore our member replied?" Mr Wardle prevaricated and failed to answer the question adequately.

Our member then went onto voice his disgust that Persimmon have made enough money out of the tax payers of this borough already when they were made 'project mangers' for the refurbishment of the boating lake. Mr Wardle insisted that the refurbishment of the boating lake was a seperate issue but our member once again tore his statements to shreds. He told Mr Wardle that the boating lake was initially part of the masterplan and that both Persimmon and Mcalpines were going to make a contribution to the £60,000 cost of carrying out the necessary work at that time. However, Persimmon had then been made project managers for this refurbishment, theirs and Mcalpines financial contribution to it ceased, Persimmon subcontracted the work to Hellens construction of Newcastle and suddenly, the cost of the refurbishment of the boating lake rocketed from £60,000, to nearly one million pounds. Persimmon would have probably made around £100,000 on the deal as project managers!

Once again, Mr Wardle was silenced.

Our member then asked Mr Wardle why the council spent £75,000 on surveys and plans for the leisure centre in December last year when the village green case was in the hands of the Supreme Court? Mr Wardle told him that they had done this because they had been told that they had a good chance of winning and that they hadn't wanted to waste any time progressing the scheme once they Supreme Court hearing had finished. So where are the plans asked our member? Mr Wardle expected him to believe that they hadn't been finished, SIX MONTHS after they were commissioned by the council and that no money had been paid yet?

It is obvious that the council are wriggling. It would appear that they are desperately looking to offer excuses, no matter how inplausable they may be, because they know that they seriously made an error of judgement here. They monitor this site and other things that we say in public and they know that we have brought this issue into the public domain. They know that they should not have committed public money to such a cost when it was non-refundable, when the village green issue hadn't even been heard by the Supreme Court and they are trying to cover their backs.

Their cynical attempts to conceal the truth in order to save their own skins over this issue, are as ridiculous as when Ian Hopley stated at the Information Tribunal in Newcastle last Novemeber, that on one hand the council did not know if a seadefence in Coatham was needed yet in the very same breath he said that a seadefence in Coatham was "crucial" to the scheme going ahead? He made such a ridiculous, contradictory statement in order to try and wriggle out of admitting the fact that if the scheme went ahead, this council was committed to spending millions of pounds of public money on a seadefence that was the sole responsibility of Persimmon Homes PLC and in so doing admitting the fact that the council had lied under the FOI act!

Mr Wardle told our member that at the special meeting to be held to discuss the options for Coatham, the options would be put forward and then they would be put out for public consultation with the usual procurement procedures being put into motion after that. However, our member pointed out that Mr Wardle had gotten things the wrong way round?

He pointed out to Mr Wardle that what is supposed to happen is that FIRST the council consults with the public, they then draw up options from that consultation and then discuss the best way forward with the cabinet. But when you look at it, how can we trust the council on this issue when after denying that Persimmon were hanging around in the background, Mr Wardle then admitted that they were? What is happening here is akin to the council and Persimmon homes being involved in Coatham a year before the major leisure scheme in Coatham, that somehow became a major housing scheme, was even advertised as a leisure scheme!

How could any involvement with Persimmon now be unbiased? As such they should have no involvement at all. If they are involved in any further procurement procedures for Coatham, as a house builder, major questions would have to be asked if they were given the contract to build a leisure centre and pool, presumably over and above leisure developers, especially in light of the scandal of the boating lake?

Our member told Mr Wardle that he himself had put forward suggestions for the area which involved the refurbishment of the Coatham Bowl and existing leisure centre. Once again, Mr Wardle was backwards in coming forwards with the truth. He told our member that with his background in construction, he knew that the Bowl was structurally unsound and that it had to come down because it wasn't cost effective to carry out work on it.

Upon being told this, that our member then told him that that was rubbish because he was in possession of a council report from just a couple of years ago, which showed that the Bowl and leisure centre weren't structurally unsound, that they only needed a new roof, a new kitchen, decorating and bringing up to date which at that time was going to cost £1,000,000. Taking inflation into account, this figure would have probably risen to £1,500,000 now.

But more than this common sense defeats Mr Wardles inane statement because when you think about it, if the Bowl and Leisure centre are structurally unsound and the council have known this for at least a couple of years, then why have they been happy to put peoples safety at risk and let people continue to use it?

When these facts were brought to Mr Wardles attention he told our member that he had not seen the council report?

How Convenient.

When asked why the council had not been over to cut the grass on the common and tidy it up and why thay hadnt put dog litter bins there, Mr Wardle said that the council didnt have the resources, but I was on the Stray on Thursaday and council workers were cutting the grass there and there were dog litter bins for people who were walking their dogs there?

Some individuals within our council are an absolute disgrace. If I have said this once, I have said it a thousand times. They deliberately misinform the public, they wriggle and they twist and make up far-fetched excuses when they are so blatantly caught out, they continually issue statements that contradict things that they have previously said and they try and cover their tracks and their undemocratic wrongdoing at at every possible opportunity.

The council have become a laughing stock amongst the legal profession. They have brought our council down into disrepute in tribunal after tribunal. They have had a neighbouring MP call for their investigation. They have been damned and downgraded by the audit commission. They have been found guilty of maladministration by the Ombudsman. They have lied to firms of solicitors in order to try and exhonerate themselves. They have lied under the Freedom of Information act too. They have had a unanimous ruling made against them by the highest court in this country.

Yet still, they exude such arrogance and contempt for the public, still they go uninvestigated.

How much longer can this be allowed to continue?

What on earth is going on now?

2010-05-22T05:05:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, I sent this email to the local press...

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 20th MAY 2010...

CAMPAIGNERS CALL FOR OPENESS AND TRANSPARENCY OVER COATHAM...

Following the Supreme Courts unanimous ruling in March in favour of the Friends of Coatham Common's application to register part of Coatham Common as a village green which saw the Coatham Enclosure scheme be publicly abandoned and which changed the law on two points regarding the registration of open spaces in this Country, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council are still persisting in holding talks about the options for Coatham, behind closed doors.

Despite Council leader George Dunning telling one of the group in correspondences that the options for Coatham would be discussed at the cabinet meeting on the 25th of May and that the public would be able to be in attendance because there "would be no confidential financial items hence all on white public papers", the council have now done a complete U turn and have decided to hold the Coatham options section of the meeting behind closed doors, excluding the press and public.

Founder of the campaign against the houses in Coatham Chris Mcglade said " The council have failed to learn any lessons even though they have been found wanting by the Supreme Court itself. The Supreme Courts ruling stated that the council "got it wrong from the start" and it would appear that rather than wanting to make a fresh start and do things correctly this time by holding open and transparent discussions about this subject, they would prefer to carry on getting things wrong and by doing everything in secret which does absolutely nothing to instil confidence or trust in the general public".

Mr Charles Davis of the Friends said, "we were told by a senior council officer that the Coatham part of the meeting was infact being held behind closed doors because commercially sensitive issues were tied into the options for Coatham and that it wasn't in the best interests of the public for them to know. But there is no scheme, it has been abandoned, and therefore there can be nothing of any commercially sensitive nature to discuss, this was even stated by the leader of the council in an email to another member of our group? And since when has keeping things secret from the public ever been in their best interests?

The whole thing is an absolute disgrace when you take into consideration the scale of the Supreme Courts landmark ruling, the massive mistrust that the councils reluctance to be open about Coatham has caused in the past, and given that this council have wasted four million pounds of public money by spending it on things which are the sole responsibility of Persimmon homes. Just what have this Council got to hide about Coatham?"

Mr Mcglade concluded "These people are trying to cover up their mistakes regarding Coatham, this is the only reason for the secrecy and we intend to go to the meeting at the Eston Town Hall on May 25th at 10'oclock and ask the questions that still have not been answered. Now is not the time for secrecy and subdifuge, now is the time for honesty and transparency and for everyone to come together to discuss the right way forward and we will not go away until the truth about this scheme that our last MP Vera Baird called a disaster on radio, is known.

PRESS RELEASE ENDS....

It went out just before I posted details of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council's decision to hold the Coatham Options section of their cabinet meeting, behind closed doors next Tuesday, on this site.

However, yesterday after the press release had been in the hands of the press for approximately a day, I was then emailed by the Evening Gazette's Political editor Sandy Mackenzie, who told me that he too had seen that the Coatham options had been omitted from the agenda but when he asked at the council, they told him that the options for Coatham section of the meeting WAS going to be held in public?

So what a situation we have now!!!

Firstly we had the leader of the council telling members of the public by email, that the options section would be open to the public.

But then we had the Coatham options section being omitted from the cabinet papers and stating that the press and public would be exluded from these discussions and that it wouldn't be open to them?

Then we have council officer Alan Logan backing this up by telling a member of our group that the Coatham options section would be discussed behind closed doors because commercially sensitive issues were tied into the options and AMAZINGLY that it wasn't in the best interests of the public to know?

And now finally, we have the Gazettes political editor telling us that just a couple of days ago, he was informed by the council that the Coatham options section would be held in public again?

Who on earth can understand what these people are doing when they seem to chop and change their minds on practically a daily basis depending it seems, on what is made public and what isn't?

I was also interested to see on the BBC news yesterday, that the new coalition Government is now going to force all local authorities to make details of all elements of their spending over the sum of £500.00 public, in the interests of openness and transparency http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/uk_politics/8694584.stm

How that must have come as a swift kick in the doo dahs to those who are running Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council at a time when they were trying to sweep everything under the carpet and attempt to keep everything secret regarding the Coatham scheme...even though it has been abandoned?

I suppose we'll just have to go to the cabinet meeting on Tuesday and see if we are asked to leave, because I honestly haven't got a clue at this moment in time as to what their exact intentions are???

Is this really how a democratic, open, transparent, accountable local authority should leave the public thinking and feeling?

Even in defeat, the secrecy regarding The Coatham Enclosure Scheme goes on...

2010-05-21T03:36:00.000-07:00

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in our favour, the leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, George Dunning, sent a letter to a member of our group stating quite clearly that all issues regarding the aftermath of the Coatham scheme being abandoned, were going to be treated in an open and transparent manner.

Soon after this, another member of our group was invited along with a handful of others by council officer Ian Wardle, to a meeting with Mr Wardle and councillor Mark Hannon to discuss the way forward with Coatham.

I sent an email to Amanda Skelton following her disgraceful performance at a meeting of the Redcar Rotary Club, countering the false claims that she had made to the Rotary club about The Coatham Scheme, pointing out the real facts to her and asking her to call for an independent investigation into the issue of FOUR MILLION POUNDS OF PUBLIC MONEY being spent by this council on things which were the sole responsibility of Persimmon Homes PLC in trying to progress a scheme that they knew all along was unlawful and blighted with problems and controversy.

Nearly two months down the line and Mrs Skelton has not yet answered?

But as if that display of arrogant contempt wasn't bad enough, not only is the future of the meeting proposed by Ian Wardle now looking extremely precarious because he is wriggling around and fudging the issue with his secretary telling us that in approximately four weeks they been able to pin a date down for everyone to attend, or Mr Wardle is constantly in meetings, George Dunnings claim, in his letter to a member of our group that the council were going to include the public in meetings about Coatham and that they were going to adopt an open and transparent approach is more akin to absolute myth than it is Councillor Dunnings usual hot air.

Why is that? I hear you say.

Well...you only have to look at the Cabinet papers for the Cabinet meeting planned for the twenty fifth of this month to see that far from being open and transparent over the issue of Coatham Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, even in the wake of the death of it's pet scheme, are still keeping everything regarding the 'botched', 'tainted', 'disaster' completely secret by excluding both the press and public from the cabinet meeting when the options for Coatham are discussed.

There is no scheme left, it has been abandoned, there can be nothing of any commercially sensitive nature to hide behind and yet this council are still keeping everything regarding this scheme under lock and key?

When this bunch of cowboys have WASTED approximately FOUR MILLION POUNDS of PUBLIC MONEY trying to progress this scheme on behalf of the richest builder in the country for it to end up being scrapped not only should there be an open and independent investigation, heads should roll for at least, the sheer incompetence that has led to this mess and waste of public money. And yet instead, these people think that if they say nout and just continue to try and keep everything regarding this most underhanded scheme under wraps and if they continue to treat the public of Redcar and Cleveland with sheer contempt, that everything will be ok.

I've got news for them, it isn't. Now that the election is over and the burden of having a greedy, two faced MP called Vera Baird has been lifted from the shoulders of this area and now that this Labour led council hasn't got the protection that they enjoyed whilst Baird was MP, we are going to do all that we can to expose what has happened here and the cover up that is still being purpotrated even though the scheme has been officially abandoned.

How many schemes do you know of were kept secret even though they have been abandoned?

Let investigation begin, let the unanswered questions be answered and let the guilty and those responsible for the sheer waste of FOUR MILLION POUNDS OF PUBLIC MONEY BE SACKED!

Even in defeat, the secrecy regarding The Coatham Enclosure Scheme goes on...

2010-05-15T06:23:00.000-07:00

VICTORY!!! But what happens now?

2010-04-24T05:31:00.000-07:00

It has been approximately six weeks since the Supreme Court of England, the highest court in this land, ruled unanimously in our favour so ending the 'disastrous' to quote Vera Baird, Coatham housing scheme and our five and a half year campaign.

All five Supreme Court judges ruled that the land in Coatham should be registered as a village green and all five judges stated that not only had we fulfilled all of the criteria to have the land registered as a village green, we had done so when we first applied to have the land registered in 2005? Five of the most senior judges in this country could not understand why, when we had fulfilled all of the criteria to have the land registered in 2005, had the original village green inspector Mr Vivian Chapman QC, still ruled in the councils favour?

For this the Supreme Court said that Mr Chapman had "seriously misdirected himself".

What is even more surprising to learn is that when the whole village green process was ongoing during 2005/2006, whilst we were allowed absolutely no contact with Mr Chapman whatsoever, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council were direct in contact with Mr Chapman all of the time, even at home?

It has taken me approximately six weeks to think about what I wanted to say and I want to say this...

The Supreme Court ruling unanimously in our favour has now changed the law on two points in this country regarding the registering of open land as village greens and open spaces. Village greens and open spaces will now be registered more easily and The Friends of The Earth, The Environmental Law Foundation, The Open Spaces Society, the legal system, law journals and magazines have all hailed our victory in Coatham as a result of our sustained, peaceful, lawful, democratic campaign, as 'monumental'.

Generations of people in this country will now benefit from areas of land in this country being saved and kept open as a result of our campaign and our struggle and this indeed is monumental. Groups of people from as far away as Brixham in Devon, Morcambe, Sedgefield, Cumbria and York have approached me wanting advice and the knowledge that we have as a result of campaigning for so long. I feel proud and I feel humble and I also feel knackered too!

But I also feel dismayed. Dismayed that despite over four miillion pounds of public money being wasted by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council pushing this housing scheme on behalf of Persimmon Homes PLC and despite me and our group being totally vindicated by the Supreme Courts unanimous ruling, elements of this council assisted by the local press, are still trying to peddle untruths and paint false pictures to the largely misinformed public. Not only that, not one question has been asked about the huge amount of public money that has been wasted.

The Chief Executive of the council, Amanda Skelton, addressed a meeting of the Redcar Rotary club some weeks ago and fed them utter rubbish about all these pie in the sky leisure facilities not now going ahead because the protestors had won and the Coatham Development had been stopped when in truth, the leisure facilities that the council have been touting for five and a half years were never going to happen because they had attracted absolutely no funding whatsoever and that is with the housing scheme having planning permission. I have written a detailed letter to Amanda Skelton outlining her 'mistakes' and over a month down the line, she has not had the courtesy to reply.

The Evening Gazette, faithful to the council to the end, printed the story of the Supreme Courts ruling as it happened but so biased and misinformed was their reporting, that I threatened to take them to the Press Complaints Commission. Their political editor Sandy Mackenzie invited me to send him a press release which wasn't printed for over a week and when it was is was 'coincidentally' tied in with a release from the council which informed us that Persimmon had pulled out of the development?

The Gazette published a letter from someone who basically tried to put our group down with misinformed claims, but refused to print my reply which contained 100% fact which answered those claims? This is particularly galling when you take into consideration that the Gazette then printed, just this week and nearly seven weeks after the Supreme Court ruling, another particularly nasty, untruthful, 'poison pen letter which was obviously written to stir up animosity towards the people who have campaigned against the housing element of the Coatham scheme. What's more they chose to draw more attention to this vitriolic rubbish by putting a picture of the un-necessary fencing which blighted Coatham for two and a half years, piled high on Coatham Common, next to it. I sent two emails to the editor of the Gazette complaining about his newspapers blatant bias and copied the PCC into the second.

Strangely enough, the day after I complained, a letter appeared in the paper countering the most recent poisonous letter?

I and other members of our group on the other hand, have deliberately not said anything and there are lots of things that I could certainly say. I have allowed people to attack our group publicly for stopping this development when I have information that would show those people who have attacked us, that not everyone within the council were as against the scheme as they made out and that our victory in the Supreme Court was as a direct result of their actions, but I haven't.

Why haven't I?

Because now is not the time for arguing, past differences and concentrating on things that have no meaning anymore, now is the time for us all to come together to work out what is best and what is achievable for Coatham. The facts are there, uncovered and made public by our group for five and a half years. The anonymous snipers, Persimmon and elements of the council can continue to try to peddle their untruths and take their pot shots as much as they like but they can't escape the facts and the facts are that there were never going to be any leisure facilities in Coatham save a swimming pool and leisure centre that the the council were going to borrow fourteen million pounds to build and raise council tax to do so.

Our group and I have wanted the best deal for Coatham and now that the houses have been stopped, we can still get it. Now that the houses have been stopped we still have a blank canvass in Coatham, we still have the opportunity, and time, to develop the area solely for leisure purposes something that historically, the area has always been used for. I agree 100% with what Liberal Democrat General Election Candidate Ian Swales said publicly after the Supreme Courts landmark ruling, when he said that the council were going to borrow the money to build a pool so even though the houses have been stopped, the pool should still be built.

Infact, so much do I wish to see no more animosity washing around, so much do I want to see Coatham and the town get the best deal that it can and even though I have been directly against the Liberal Democrats over the issue of Coatham, I have pledged my support to Ians General Election campaign and I would urge every last one of the 2379 people who voted for me in the 2005 General Election, to vote for Ian this time around.

He is a local man who like me, cares passionately about Redcar. He hasn't been drafted in from some other part of the country to contest the seat, he lives here and he listens to local people. My decision isn't based on party politics because I am a socialist at heart. My decision is based on the fact that I believe that he has a real passion and caring for this area and that he would be the best man for the job.

Redcar doesn't need a Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat as MP, what it needs is a local man as MP.

I stood up nearly six years ago to try and stop the housing in Coatham. This council have wasted four million pounds of public money by picking up the tab for things that were the sole responsibility of Persimmon Homes PLC. If the houses had gone ahead, then that sum would have increased by many millions more because this council had pledged themselves to building a sea defence to protect the houses that Persimmon wanted to build and that massive undertaking was the sole responsibility of Persimmon Homes. Thank God we stopped that.

I am proud, not just of myself, but of the hundreds of people from all over Redcar and the wider borough who petitioned, marched, leafletted, researched, attended meetings and who have endured all manner of smears and denegration through fighting this campaign. I am proud of all those people from around the country who have helped us through the five and a half years, overcome against massive odds.

To every last one of them I just simply want to say thankyou and to the people of Coatham and Redcar I want to say lets all come together to now get the very best for Coatham that we possibly can.

Never again let the people of this town and borough, and what they want, be ignored.

Peace,

Chris Mcglade.

What on earth is going on?

2010-01-10T04:16:00.000-08:00

This is an absolute sham. Remember the £19,000,000 fraud case in which Persimmon Homes were found to have been instrumental? Well read this latest episode and prepared to be shocked. The seven men who had all been fingered as being guilty by the crooked accountant, all walked away free? The guilty accountant who admitted that he was guilty and didn't hide from the police what had been going on, was spared prison and given a couple of hundred hours community work? The mastermind behind it all is still on the run in a foreign country? And Persimmon Homes, the developer who was found to have been instrumental in all of this fraud on a multi million pound scale, still have not been investigated?

The crime has been committed, the police know that it has, they know who has done it yet despite knowing it and despite knowing that a thorough investigation of Persimmon Homes would shed even more light on things, nothing has been done by the Police or the courts or even by the Labour MP for the area who I believe was informed, some months ago, of what has taken place.

This is an absolute disgrace.

January 04, 2010

PINNER, MIDDLESEX; DARTFORD, KENT; FOREST GATE, WALTHAMSTOW, EAST LONDON; SOUTH OCKENDON, ILFORD, ESSEX;

A crooked chartered accountant who helped pull off a multi-million pound mortgage con was spared jail today (Mon).

Stuart Joseph, 63, was paid £100 a time to rubber stamp false financial records for clients he had never even met to ensure they would be granted mortgages.
Over seven years the accountant repeatedly helped brokers secure loans from high street lenders by providing false applicant details.

Joseph was caught out following an investigation into a £19million scam which involved the purchase of a block of new flats from Persimmon Homes, one of Britain's biggest homebuilders, before selling them on at huge mark-ups.

It was claimed he was approached by a group of white collar professionals and paid to help them make doshonest mortgage applications.

Joseph admitted his role to police but in November last year seven men accused of the swindle were cleared of any wrongdoing.

He admitted seven counts of false accounting and asked for another 32 similar offences to be taken into consideration against him at Southwark Crown Court.
Richard Mandel QC, prosecuting, said: 'This is something, if you look at it with the other offences to be taken into consideration, Mr Joseph did on a regular basis, starting from 2000 and carrying on well into the middle of 2007.'

Following his arrest in May 2007, Joseph told police he had nothing to do with the conspiracy to defraud mortgage lenders.
'He said what he had done was to provide either certificates or accounts but only in terms of information he had been given by brokers which he believed to be true.
'The only flaw he would acknowledge was that he had failed in his duty of due diligence.'

Joseph signed a deal with police to get a reduced sentence if he gave evidence against seven other men accused of the con.

But following a lengthy trial estate agent Mohammed Barrie, 39, brother Muctaru, 29, mortgage valuers Brad Fisher, 44, George Sourou, 43, and Sofiya Ahmed, 28, accountant Dean Dairo, 48, and solicitor Okwuchukwu Izuchukwu, 45, walked free from court.

The alleged mastermind Alim Barry, a Sierra Leonean property magnate who also owns houses in Leeds and Manchester, has fled abroad.

In early 2006, his shell company Atrex bought a total of 84 flats in the Hill House block in Thamesmead, South East London from Persimmon for £15.25m.
The properties were later sold on for £18.75m - a total profit of £3.5m.

It was claimed in court that Persimmon staff were involved in the fraud but police did not have the resources to investigate the company.

Barry and his alleged accomplices recruited dozens of low-income workers as mortgage applicants, promising them they could move into the luxury apartments for nothing.

It was claimed the defendants used Joseph's accountancy skills to produce a series of fake financial histories to fool banks into handing over the loans.
Handing Joseph a 12 month prison sentence suspended for 12 months, Judge Andrew Goymer said: 'You, as a chartered accountant and a member of the professional body that is the most highly regarded in the accountancy profession, thoroughly abused that position and abused the trust that was placed in you.
'Over a period of some years you produced false sets of accounts in respect of individuals who had never been your clients and for whom you had never acted financially.'

Joseph, of Furham Field, in Pinner, Middx, was also ordered to do 260 hours of unpaid work.

Mohammed Barrie, of (78) Pinewood Ave, Dartford, Kent; Izuchukwu, of (139) Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, East London; Ahmed, of (153) Howard Road, Walthamstow, East London; Dairo, of (20) Eastern Ave, South Ockendon, Essex; Fisher, of (33) Tiptree Crescent, Ilford, Essex; and Sourou, of (21) The Crescent, Ilford, Essex were cleared of a conspiracy to defraud mortgage lenders.
Muctaru Barrie, also of (78) Pinewood Place, Mohammed Barrie and Izuchukwu were cleared of a conspiracy to launder criminal property.

ENDS

P.S...And to think that our council are in bed with Persimmon and that our council have already told me that they don't have a problem with them?

Didn't you just know it?

2010-01-08T05:38:00.000-08:00

Didnt you just know it? After knowing about the Coatham Village Green Issue going all the way up to the Supreme Court for over five weeks now and not mentioning it once in the local press and media, the council have now informed me that they will not be "reviewing it", presumably in the press beforehand, because they just want to let justice take its natural course.

Since when would simply informing the public about a Supreme Court Case of national importance, a Supreme Court case that the public of this area have a right to know about because their council is directly involved in it, ever be considered as interfering with the court case or natural justice? That's right...it wouldn't.

The failure of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council to tell the public of the area what is exactly going on, once again demonstrates their eagerness to only let the public know what they want them to know not what is actually happening.

The questions everyone should be asking now are why don't the council want the public to know about this Supreme Court Case of National importance and would this culture of disinformation be more at home in communist or facist dictatorship rather than a supposed 21st century democracy?

Nearly a month on...and still nothing?

2010-01-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

It's been nearly a month since the Supreme Court made the decision to hear the Coatham Village green case and still the council have made no mention of it publicly? I have just emailed the leader of the council, George Dunning, to see if it is the councils intention to do so before the hearing commences on the 18th of this month? It will be interesting to see how he replies.

I'll keep you all posted.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the readers of this site a very happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous new year!

Now then mushrooms, are you all sitting comfortably?

2009-12-14T03:40:00.000-08:00

Hello people of Redcar and Cleveland and beyond!

Now, what I am about to tell you will come as a shock to you because it hasn't been featured in any local newspaper, or on any local radio station or on any local TV news programme. When you take into consideration the sheer magnitude of the development that I am about to reveal to you, you will probably wonder why Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, as they are massively affected by this development, have issued no press release to inform you of what has happened? I mean, aren't the local authority supposed to inform the residents of the borough just exactly what is happening within the corridors of power and exactly what the state of play is with important issues?

Well yes...it is important, but Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, despite having known the information that I am about to reveal to you for nearly two weeks now, have said absolutely nothing! I will attempt to expand on why later but lets get down to the news.

NEARLY TWO WEEKS AGO, THE SUPREME COURT OF ENGLAND ( OLD HOUSE OF LORDS ) THE HIGHEST COURT IN THE LAND, DECIDED THAT THE ISSUE OF THE COATHAM VILLAGE GREEN ISSUE SHOULD BE HEARD BY THE SUPREME COURT.

The fall out from this is massive. The village green case in Coatham is now a test case, a law will be defined as a result of this case being heard by the Supreme Court. The outcome of this hearing will affect battles for open spaces and village greens all over this country and yet Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council haven't mentioned it once in the press or on their website or in their own council publications?

How's that for only letting you know what they want you to know? Oh no doubt they'll get a press release out in double quick time now that I have put this posting onto this blog, but it's not something that they really want to do. You see in March last year, they put out this story in the press and on their own site

http://www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk/PressRel.nsf/PublishedM/2C022C2E482A7184802574190038B824?OpenDocument

What is funny about this is that the day before this press release went out, the council had already notified opposing solicitors that it was their intention to take the issue of the village green to judicial review themselves and yet in their press release they make out that the whole process was over and the protestors were beaten?
How embarrassing for them now then to tell the public that the process that they had made out was over, even though they knew it wasnt, has now gone up to the highest court in the Country.

They lied in the press, they deliberately did not tell the public the truth and now that the issue that they tried to make the public believe was over once and for all ( even though they knew it wasn't ) has gone all the way to the Supreme court, they are left wanting and their lies have been exposed once again. This is probably why you have seen no mention of it in the press from them even though it is absolutely massive news.

Afterall, how can they tell the public in the press, nearly two years down the line, that the village green issue is going to be heard in the Supreme Court, when they have already told the public in the press that the whole process was over without showing themselves up for being the absolute liars that they are?

What are they going to do if the land is given village green status and the Coatham scheme is scrapped as a result? What spin and lies will they feed the public then?

The whole rotten, inept, lot want sacking and an independent investigation should begin straight away.

Another half a million pounds...plus costs.

2009-11-24T05:29:00.000-08:00

Today, in the Northern Echo, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council were shown up again. In 2005/06 the Scanlon Tribunal report showed that Pauline Scanlon had been harrassed, bullied and intimidated and then unfairly dismissed by the now ex-CEO Colin Moore and the now ex-finance officer Ray Richardson. Despite these two men being found to have changed their evidence to the tribunal overnight, guilty of sharp practise, and being deliberately disingenuous and despite the leader of the opposition calling for Moore in particular to be investigated, neither of them were investigated or sacked.

The council, since that decision was made, have continually wasted tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money, appealing the decision when they have had no chance of ever winning it. Today, the decision is final and Pauline Scanlon has been awarded nearly half a million pounds.

This councils ineptitude aswell as its dishonesty is now, once again, there for all to see. As a result of this even more questions have to be answered. Why were Moore and Richardson never investigated and sacked? Why were they allowed to slip out of the backdoor with glowing references from the very man who had called for Moores investigation and huge payoffs running into hundreds of thousands of pounds? The un-named council spokesman said that this was all a long time ago and a new CEO was in place now blah de blah, but if it was all so long ago then why have the council continually appealed against the decision and why were councilors still defending Moore at a FOI tribunal that I called for and which took place three weeks ago?

The fact that the council have kept appealing the decision is in itself a contradiction when the leader of the council was so outraged by it that he called for Moores investigation? Why would the leader authorise each appeal and spend huge sums of public money doing so, when he knew that Moore had behaved so badly and that the council were so wrong? Or was it that he kept on appealing until enough time had passed that a council spokesman could quite easily say "That was all a long time ago"?

But if it was all such a long time ago, why did Councilor Peter Scott, at an FOI tribunal in Newcastle three weeks ago, knowing how despicably and dishonestly Moore had behaved, describe Colin Moore an "an honest man"?

Why are this council still defending the ex -CEO when his investigation was called for twice and when he was openly found to be sharp practising, evidence changing and deliberately disingenuous? Why was he rewarded with glowing references and a huge pay off instead of no references and the sack?

But the biggest question of all is if this council are paying nearly half a million pounds to an ex emplyee who used to be in a £25,000 per year job in the council, then how much did they pay the assistant Chief Executive who was due to go to tribunal in May this year, who's case would have exposed the whole dirty truth about this council, who had called John Wilkinson and I as witnesses, but who settled out of court just the week before our film "Coatham, a common concern" was shown in parliament?

And all Mr Dunning could say was "Everything between Redcar and Cleveland council and Persimmon is fine"?

2009-11-05T12:21:00.000-08:00

After bringing this ongoing story to the attention of George Dunning all he could say was "Everything between Redcar and Cleveland council and Persimmon is fine"? Would you spend millions of pounds of public money on behalf of a builder who had been involved in such a scandal?

November 03, 2009

DARTFORD, KENT; WALTHAMSTOW, FOREST GATE, E LONDON; ILFORD, SOUTH OCKENDON, ESSEX; PINNER, MIDDX.

A broker accused of helping to run a £19m sub-prime mortgage con claimed today (Tue) he was also ‘deceived’ by the set-up.Businessman Brad Fisher, 44, helped swindle millions in an elaborate scam in which construction giant Persimmon Homes played an ‘instrumental’ role, it is claimed.

A broker accused of helping to run a £19m sub-prime mortgage con claimed today (Tue) he was also ‘deceived’ by the set-up.

Businessman Brad Fisher, 44, helped swindle millions in an elaborate scam in which construction giant Persimmon Homes played an ‘instrumental’ role, it is claimed.

Alim Barry, the alleged mastermind of the scam, fled the country with most of the cash and has not been seen since.

Barry and his cousin Mohammed Barrie made huge profits when they bought an entire block of flats from Persimmon at a knock-down price before selling on the individual properties, it is alleged.

Prosecutors say the fraudsters created dozens of fake financial histories for their ‘buyers’ so their mortgage applications would be approved.
Fisher, who owns and runs mortgage broker firm The Money Superstore, or TMS, allegedly submitted vastly inflated valuations for the flats to High Street banks.

He duped the lenders into handing over far more than the properties were worth to borrowers who had no hope of repaying the money, it is said.
The crooks then pocketed the profits - estimated at £3.5m.
But Fisher denied any complicity in the illegal activity, claiming he was ‘deceived.'

Fisher had a meeting with Barry to a business deal involving mortgages for Persimmon Homes, the court heard.

Prosecutor Richard Mandel asked: ‘So is the position that your discussion with Alim Barry left you with the impression that you would be dealing with clients who were buying property from Persimmon Homes?’

‘That was the impression I was given,’ Fisher replied.
‘I now know that it was not the position.’

The court has heard Alim Barry’s shell company Atrex bought the 84 flats from Persimmon for £15.25m and sold them for £18.75m - a profit of £3.5m.

Barry then employed his cousin to recruit ‘dupes’ from within the Sierra Leonean community to act as mortgage applicants for the flats in Thamesmead, South East London.

It is claimed he and others promised the ‘buyers’ that they could get a luxury flat without paying any deposit, presenting them with detailed prospectuses to persuade them to sign up.

One applicant was even recruited as he queued for groceries in the supermarket, it is said.25 of these ‘dupes’ were sent to Fisher to fill in bogus mortgage applications, it is claimed.

Mr Mandel asked: ‘As far as the impression you received was the impression you were meant to be receiving, you were deceived?’ Fisher answered: ‘That’s correct.’

All mortgage payments for the flats were made by Barry and members of his family, the jury was told. ‘He never told me that,' said Fisher.

‘If I discovered he deceived me about that I would have notified the appropriate authorities and stopped working with him.’
The prosecutor said: ‘In fact you knew exactly what the picture was, didn’t you? All along?’ ‘No, I didn’t. No’, the broker denied.‘I never knew the real seller was Alim Barry.’

Fisher never knew the claims he submitted were false, he told the jury.
He said: ‘I have never willingly or knowingly submitted any false documents or any false income references to any lender at any time.’

Shaun Hammond, defending, asked: ‘Have you ever knowingly submitted anything false to a lender?’

Fisher replied: ‘Never in my entire professional career have I knowingly or willingly provided any false documents to any lender or professional institution.
‘I never had any flats repossessed or houses repossessed from any customers or any blemishes against me from the FSA or any complaints or anything.’

Accountant Stuart Joseph, 43, has admitted inventing financial references for fraudulent mortgage applicants, the court heard.

But Fisher again denied knowing the financial references were false.
Alongside Fisher in the dock are Mohammed, 39, and Muctaru Barrie, 29, mortgage valuers Brad Fisher, 44, George Sourou, 43, and Sofiya Ahmed, 28, accountant Dean Dairo, 48, and solicitor Okwuchukwu Izuchukwu.

Mr Mandel told the court that staff at Persimmon were ‘instrumental’ in creating inflated valuations for the flats so that mortgage lenders would part with more cash.

Mohammed Barrie, of (78) Pinewood Ave, Dartford, Kent; Izuchukwu, of (139) Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, East London; Ahmed, of (153) Howard Road, Walthamstow, East London; Dairo, of (20) Eastern Ave, South Ockendon, Essex; Fisher, of (33) Tiptree Crescent, Ilford, Essex; and Sourou, of (21) The Crescent, Ilford, Essex deny conspiracy to defraud mortgage lenders.
Muctaru Barrie, also of (78) Pinewood Place, Mohammed Barrie and Izuchukwu deny conspiracy to launder criminal property.
Joseph, of (4) Furham Field, Pinner, Middlesex, has admitted seven specimen charges of false accounting.
The trial continues

ENDS

It's not just us calling for their investigation....

2009-11-02T05:54:00.000-08:00

We have claimed for some time that Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council should be investigated independently. They have castigated us for this and stated that we are liars and that our accusations are unfounded, but lets look at their own record for calling for investigations into themselves.

In 2006/2007, the Labour MP and the the Labour group were saying that the Coatham planning process was and I quote "tainted" and that it would "come back to haunt them". The Labour group and the Labour MP both said that the old ruling LibDem/ Conservative coalition should have it called in, the MP even emailed me and said that she was going to contact G.O.N.E to get it called in, yet no investigation or public inquiry ever took place? The Labour leader then 'blamed' the Conservatives in the letters page of the Gazette, for having signed the Development agreement! What on earth would you do that for if the scheme was so great and everything was above board?

Then we had an independent councillor calling for an investigation over the private road adoption scheme because the council paid Mcalpines £1,300,000 for work to be done on private roads that cost less than £200,000 to complete.No investigation ever took place.

Then we had the LibDems calling for an investigation into the council investing millions of pounds in Icelandic banks against advice and being one of only seven councils in the country to be shamed nationally and branded as being negligent by the Audit Commission.No investigation ever took place.

Then we had the Labour leader calling twice for the investigation into the ex-CEO for his shameful behaviour. No investigations ever took place, he was never even reprimanded infact, rather than investigate him, they gave him a massive £369,000 enhanced pay deal, glowing reference in the press and let him out the back door on a chronic illness ticket.

This council have publicly called for their own investigation in one way or another on several occasions, thats how bad things are here, yet not once has anyone done anything about any of it.

And on top of this, not only have the Serious Fraud Office stated in a letter that they should be investigated by the police possibly assisted by the CPS, they stated publicly that the police and the Audit Commission etc had investigated claims of corruption within the council when an FOI request showed that no such investigations had ever taken place!

You just couldnt make it up could you?

Another lame reply from a lame leader of a dishonest council...

2009-11-01T11:55:00.000-08:00

Here is George Dunning latest reply to my email. Once again, he dodges the issues and this time, presumably because his ineptitude and dishonesty have been posted on this site for all to see, he starts to denegrate.

Is this the kind of behaviour that you would expect from the leader of a Local Authority especially when he has been shown time and time again to have been in charge of a council that basically, according to the SFO, should be investigated by the Police.

Here is his latest response with my reply to him...

Hi Chris

Totally sums you up, below Chris, totally untrustworthy.
All you want to do is discredit people.
? Can you sum Chris McGlade in one word = untrustworthy.

Regards,

George

Hello George,

You call for your ex CEO's investigation twice but then let him leave the council on the grounds of ill health, with over £360,000 of public money, without so much as a question asked, for him to turn up working for Cumbria council just months later?

You paint a false image to the public in the press about the village green process being over when in reality, you were aware all along that the process was not over because the council itself had notified solicitors that they intended to take the issue to Judicial Review themselves?

You don't do anything about the fact that your ex CEO and finance officer surpress an audit report in order to lie about the councils star rating?

You fail to do anything about the fact that the ex CEO was pushing the inclusion of a 5GP surgery as part of the Coatham Scheme whilst his wife was pushing it as a board member of the PCT and that there was a massive conflict of interests but you could only bring yourself to describe it as naughty?

You spend millions of pounds of public money assisting the efforts of a private developer who just so happens to have been found as being instrumental in a multi million pound mortgage fraud in a british crown court?

You support an MP who was behaved shockingly in the expenses scandal and who persuaded members of the public to stand for groups in elections other than the Labour group against Labour candidates?

You allow council officers to bring the council down into disrepute in tribunal after tribunal and yet take no action whatsoever infact you have another cabinet member defend them in the press when the officer should have been sacked.

And you pledge to take the Coatham scheme back to the drawing board, brand the planning process tainted and announce in the press that the consultation has been inadequate before the local elections but then after the election when you have secured power again, you give the scheme cross party backing, tell people in the press that the scheme is excellent, announce in the press that the councils consultation shows that the silent majority are in favour of the scheme and then spend tens of thousands of pounds defending the same planning process at Judicial Review that you had described as tainted and which you said in the press, after the council had been found to have been unlawful, that you had known all along to be unlawful and you call me untrustworthy George for letting people know the truth about how the leader of a local authority fails to respond to direct questions?

If I were you George I'd examine all the things that you have allowed the guilty in the council to get away with and I'd examine your own untrustworthy actions before you start levelling that accusation at anyone. If I were you George, I'd do the right thing and resign because to be perfectly honest you are an absolute disgrace and should have been sacked long ago because your record as leader shows that not only are you dishonest, you have no control of the council whatsoever.

The officers are running rings round you mate, they did it to your predecessors. They are laughing at you all and it is the public who are suffering because of it.

Peace,

Chris.

I'll tell you what George, you may think that I'm untrustworthy for posting your replies on this site, but as long as you continue to let these abuses go unchecked and uninvestigated, whilst you allow the guilty to get away with those abuses, then I'll continue to shed light on the actions of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and their ineptitude and deceit and their wasting of public money every step of the way...

Answers on a postcard...

2009-11-01T05:55:00.000-08:00

Ive just looked at the latest court report taken from the Multi Million pound mortgage fraud case in Thamesmead in London and I took more notice of this sentence...

"Mr Mandel told the court that staff at Persimmon were ‘instrumental’ in creating inflated valuations for the flats so that mortgage lenders would part with more cash".

I wonder what Persimmon Homes did to persuade Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council pay Persimmons' legal fees and consultancy fees, something that isn't the councils responsibility, to the tune of approximately £143,000? I wonder what they did to persuade the council to erect a fence around the Coatham Enclosure on their behalf to the tune, at the last count of £48,000 and I wonder what they did to persuade the council to become financial liable for a multi million pound sea defence, that is Persimmons' sole responsibility if they want to build houses on a zone 3 high flood risk area?

What have Persimmon done or said to our council, for the council 'to part' with millions of pounds of public cash on behalf of Persimmon homes? Are local authorities supposed to take on massive financial burdens to the tax payer, that are not their responsibility, and which benefit a developer massively?

Answers on a post card please.

Last night at four minutes past nine...

2009-11-01T04:27:00.000-08:00

Last night at four minutes past nine, I received this unexpected email from the leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, George Dunning.

Dear Chris,

Seems that R&CBC's dealings with Persimmon Homes are fine. District Auditor paid a visit last week on various issues. Nothing to say on Persimmons Chris. Appears the Development agreement signed under the Coalition is fine also.We hope to carry on developing the site after the successful boating lakeand Mo mosaic opening last week.

Regards,

George.

It is obvious that the council, perhaps even George himself, monitors this site as the timing of his response following the posting that I made yesterday, was absolutely perfect. I sent this response at around midnight...

Hello George,

I would have got back to you earlier but I havent been at the computer because I've been engrossed in the X Factor!

However, it's strange that I make a posting on my blog about a lack of a response from you regarding Persimmon being involved in a multi million pound fraud in Thamesmead and then later that evening you send me a reply? With timing like that, you should be a comedian!

A few things though, you say everything is fine with Persimmon because the District Auditor didn't mention them, but there again, the District Auditor didn't mention the final financial audit report that Moore and Richardson surpressed and then, after colluding with someone within the Audit Commission, replaced with another 'final' report that was more to Mr Moores and Mr Richardsons liking, so I wouldn't put any weight on Persimmon not being mentioned by the Auditor. But that wasn't what I asked, or for that matter, brought to your attention.

What I brought to your attention was that it has been established in a British Crown Court, that your preferred developer for the Coatham Scheme, have been found to have been instrumental in a multi million pound mortgage fraud and is this the kind of company that Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council should be dealing with? Do you think that it is right that as Mark Hannon said in the paper just this week, three million pounds of public money should have been spent aiding Persimmon in trying to start this scheme, when they have been involved in fraudulent activity with more public money being spent on things that are Persimmons' sole responsibility, to come?

Finally George, you state that the Development Agreement is fine. It may be legal George, we were informed at the JR or at the appeal stage that the Development Agreement was legal, but the legality of the Development Agreement is also not the issue here.

If the council had nothing to hide or be ashamed about, then why has the council done all that it can to stop that development agreement being shown to anyone? The council even resisted it being shown to a high court. I have a copy of a Gazette Letters page from a year or so ago, where you, in response to Councilor Valerie Halton, blamed the signing of the Coatham Development on the coalition that she was a part of when you said that it was the old Coalition and not the new Labour group who had signed the Coatham Development Agreement.Why would you apportion the blame for signing that Agreement if was something to be so proud of?

If it doesn't contain anything that won't cause concern to ordinary members of the public, then as with the barristers opinion, just show it. Don't hide behind commercial sensitivity or anything like that, disclose it to the public afterall, it's their money that is being spent. How can commercial sensitivity come into play now? I can understand you not showing anyone the Development Agreement because of commercial sensitivity when the scheme was in its early stages but not now, a few months after you had stated publicly that you were going to start work in July or August.

The councils commercial sensitivity argument doesn't hold any water anymore.

I'll tell you what, as you know I'm at Tribunal next week over the issue of the councils responses to me under the FOI act regarding the council being liable for the sea defence as part of the Coatham Scheme, something that is Persimmons' sole responsibility.

To save a whole lot of time and expense I am asking you now officially, as leader of the council George, to order the disclosure of the Coatham Development Agreement to the Tribunal and myself as I am acting on my own behalf, and lets see exactly what the council have committed public money to?

You claim to be open and transparent, well put that into practise and disclose that document to the tribunal and to me at the oral hearing next week.

I look forward to your response,

Peace,

Chris.

I thought, seeing as how the council are supposed to have adopted a policy of openness and transparency, that I would have had a detailed response but this morning, instead, I received this...

Thanks Chris,

You would say that Chris, never mind.

Rgs.

George.

So I sent this reply...

Hello George,

Your email was hardly the response that I was expecting? I mean, you said absolutely nothing about Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council funding, and being involved with, a developer that has been shown in a British Crown Court to have been instrumental in a major, multi million pound fraud, you said absolutely nothing about the fact that it has been shown that your ex-CEO and Finance officer surpressed a final financial audit report that showed the council weren't a four star authority and then replaced it, with the assistance of someone in the Audit Commission, with another 'final' report that showed the council were a four star authority and you made no mention whatsoever of disclosing the Coatham Development Agreement to the forthcoming tribunal and myself in the interests of transparency and openness, let alone acknowledge my official request that you do so.

I'll make sure that when the newsletter goes out to the whole of Redcar, highlighting the Councils association with and funding of, a developer who has been 'instumental' in such a massive fraud, that your glib response to such serious, documented issues, is known.

Peace,

Chris.

It seems that this councils adopted policy of transparency and openness only applies to the things that want to be open and transparent about and they only want to comment on the things that they can claim some credit for. I've just been watching the politics show and there was a feature on council magazines being used to only put across what they want the public to know, not what is actually happening and that behaving in this manner is actually against the rules. I immediately cast my mind back to the time that the council were found guilty in a high court of having an unlawful Coatham planning meeting, of being found negligent by the audit commission for investing money in Icelandic banks against advice, of being found guilty of maladministration twice within six months and how in all of these cases not one word was mentioned in their council magazine?

I then remembered how both George Dunning and Mark Hannon had both made out in the press in early 2008, that the Coatham Village green issue was over and that we were beaten when in truth, the council had actually informed opposition solicitors that it was the councils intention to apply for an expedited rolled up hearing, something that the campaigners wanted themselves, before the press release went out. Dunning and Hannon were quite happy to paint a picture that suited them and they did not tell the truth to the people of this area in the press.

This downright failure to answer the questions and tell the truth is symptomatic in politics in this country and it was never more on display than in Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

They are an absolute disgrace and I will make sure that the public of this area know that this council have, and still are, funding a developer who have been found to have been 'instrumental' in a multi million pound mortgage fraud in an ongoing case in a British Crown Court, no matter how much Mr Dunning and his band of merry men try to evade the issue.

And still the leader of the council hasn't responded...

2009-10-31T05:51:00.000-07:00

When this story came to light, I emailed George Dunning bringing this to his attention to the details about Persimmon homes instrumental involvement in the multi million pound mortgage fraud which had taken place in Thamesmead and which is being heard at Southwark Crown Court and asking him why our council was involving itself with a developer involved in such a scandal to such a large degree? He said that he would make further investigations. Despite having emailed him a couple more times, he still hasn't made any further comment about his investigations and what he intends to do about it.

It makes you wonder if he really wants to?

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council are In bed up to their necks with Persimmon Homes PLC.

They have, as Councilor Mark Hannon admitted in the press this week, spent THREE MILLION POUNDS OF PUBLIC MONEY assisting Persimmon Homes PLC in trying and get the Coatham scheme started. They have spent public money on things on behalf of Persimmon Homes, thet they should never have spent public money on. They are liable for the cost of a multi million pound sea defence which has to be built as part of the Coatham scheme and which is Persimmon Homes' sole responsibility. They have done all of this and spent all of that public money and are going to spend even more public money on a developer who involve themselves in multi million pound mortgage frauds.

Would you give your money to a dodgy car dealer? Of course you wouldn't. So why on earth is our council giving millions of pounds of public money to a developer who has been instrumental in a multi million pound fraud?

I wonder what the people of Redcar and Cleveland will think when they read this in our next news letter?

October 30, 2009

DARTFORD, KENT

An estate agent accused of helping to run a £19m sub-prime mortgage con told his trial he just wanted to help people ‘get on the property ladder’.

Sierra Leonian immigrant Mohammed Barrie, 38, helped swindle millions in an elaborate scam in which construction giant Persimmon Homes played an ‘instrumental’ role, it is claimed.

Barrie’s gang made huge profits when they bought an entire block of flats from Persimmon at a knock-down price before selling on the individual properties, it is alleged.

Prosecutors say the fraudsters created dozens of fake financial histories for their ‘buyers’ so their mortgage applications would be approved.
They also submitted vastly inflated valuations for the flats, duping High Street lenders into handing over far more than the properties were worth to borrowers who had no hope of repaying the money.

The crooks then pocketed the profits - estimated as being at least £3.5m.
Barrie’s cousin Alim Barry who is the alleged mastermind of the scam fled the country with most of the cash and has not been seen since.
Mohammed Barrie told Southwark Crown Court that he thought he was working legitimately for his cousin.

Prosecutors say his role in the scam was to recruit ‘dupes’ from within the Sierra Leonean community to act as mortgage applicants for the flats in Thamesmead, South East London.
It is claimed he and others promised the ‘buyers’ that they could get a luxury flat without paying any deposit, presenting them with detailed prospectuses to persuade them to sign up.

One applicant was even recruited as he queued for groceries in the supermarket, it is said.

Barrie was paid at least £160,000 for five months work for his part in the scam, it is claimed.

But the defendant told the court that the clients would approach him themselves, usually at his local mosque after Friday prayers.
He said: ‘That’s where we met and they asked me if I could help them get on the property ladder.

‘They knew the relationship between Alim and me. They knew Alim was my cousin, and they knew I would introduce them to Alim as well.’
He added: ‘Alim approached me and says he’s buying property off plan, and asks if I can assist in introducing purchasers to him.‘That’s exactly what I did.
‘And he would give me commission on that for each introduction.’

Prosecutor Richard Mandel asked him: ‘You didn’t have to do any selling job at all, if I’m following you, and for that you got a very large sum of money.
‘Or is the position that you were engaging in fraud and the large sum of money, however large it was, was your cut of the fraud?’

The defendant replied: ‘No sir, it was not. I had no knowledge of the fraud.’
Alongside Barrie in the dock are his brother Muctaru Barrie, 29, mortgage valuers Brad Fisher, 44, George Sourou, 43, and Sofiya Ahmed, 28, accountant Dean Dairo, 48, and solicitor Okwuchukwu Izuchukwu.

Accountant Stuart Joseph, 43, has admitted inventing financial references for fraudulent mortgage applicants, the court heard.

Mr Mandel told the court that staff at Persimmon were ‘instrumental’ in creating inflated valuations for the flats so that mortgage lenders would part with more cash.

The court has heard Alim Barry’s shell company Atrex bought the 84 flats from Persimmon for £15.25m and sold them for £18.75m - a profit of £3.5m.

Alim Barry also owned rental properties in Leeds and Manchester, jurors heard.

Mohammed Barrie, of (78) Pinewood Ave, Dartford, Kent; Izuchukwu, of (139) Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, East London; Ahmed, of (153) Howard Road, Walthamstow, East London; Dairo, of (20) Eastern Ave, South Ockendon, Essex; Fisher, of (33) Tiptree Crescent, Ilford, Essex; and Sourou, of (21) The Crescent, Ilford, Essex deny conspiracy to defraud mortgage lenders.

Muctaru Barrie, also of (78) Pinewood Place, Mohammed Barrie and Izuchukwu deny conspiracy to launder criminal property.

Joseph, of (4) Furham Field, Pinner, Middlesex, has admitted seven specimen charges of false accounting.

The trial continues.

ENDS

Persimmon..associating themselves with corrupted accountants and mortgage lenders? And they're our councils 'preferred developer'? DISGRACEFUL!

2009-10-18T03:02:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest story in the multi million pound fraud case that Persimmon were 'instrumental' in.

DARTFORD, ILFORD, WALTHAMSTOW. A crooked accountant has described how he was paid £100 a time to sign off false income statements by a gang of mortgage fraudsters. Stuart Roberts, 43, had ‘never heard’ of his supposed clients when he rubber stamped their financial records, a court heard.
A crooked accountant has described how he was paid £100 a time to sign off false income statements by a gang of mortgage fraudsters.

Stuart Roberts, 43, had ‘never heard’ of his supposed clients when he rubber stamped their financial records, a court heard.

Prosecutors say the accountant was employed by a gang of conmen as part of an elaborate scheme to swindle nearly £19m out of High Street mortgage lenders involving builders Persimmon Homes

Mastermind Alim Barry and his henchmen skimmed off profits of £3.5m by ‘selling’ dozens of luxury flats to penniless dupes, it is said.

Staff at Persimmon Homes – which built the flats and sold them to Barry – are said to have been ‘instrumental’ in the scam.

Barry fled abroad with much of the cash and has not been seen since, leaving his associates to face trial.

Jurors have heard the gang used a network of corrupt mortgage brokers, accountants and solicitors to create new financial histories for their ‘buyers’ so that banks would loan them the cash.

At Southwark Crown Court today, Roberts, who has admitted false accounting, described how he was paid to invent financial histories for potential mortgage applicants.

He said applicants’ details were faxed to him from two different mortgage valuing firms, the Direct Mortgage Centre (DMC) and The Money Superstore (TMS).

Brad Fisher, 44, and Sofiya Ahmed, 28, who both worked at TMS, and George Sourou, 43, of DMC, conspired with Barry to defraud lenders, it is claimed.

Asked how much he would have been paid for providing a years’ worth of fake accounts, Roberts told the court: ‘I would probably have got £100 for each year.
Pointing to one reference, in which he claimed an applicant had earned £81,205 in one year, he said: ‘I didn't want to make it a round figure, because that would look suspicious.

He also told the court he had ‘never heard’ of his supposed clients before.
In the dock alongside Fisher, Sourou and Ahmed are barry’s cousins Mohammed, 39, and Muctaru Barrie, 29, accountant Dean Dairo, 48, and solicitor Okwuchukwu Izuchukwu.

Another Barrie brother, Umaru, also fled the country while on bail.
The court heard Barry’s shell company Atrex bought the fats from Persimmon for £15.25m and sold them for £18.75m – a profit of £3.5m.

Mohammed Barrie, of (78) Pinewood Ave, Dartford, Kent; Izuchukwu, of (139) Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, East London; Ahmed, of (153) Howard Road, Walthamstow, East London; Dairo, of (20) Eastern Ave, South Ockendon, Essex; Fisher, of (33) Tiptree Crescent, Ilford, Essex; and Sourou, of (21) The Crescent, Ilford, Essex deny conspiracy to defraud mortgage lenders.
Muctaru Barrie, also of (78) Pinewood Place, Mohammed Barrie and Izuchukwu deny conspiracy to launder criminal property.

Joseph, of (4) Furham Field, Pinner, Middlesex, has admitted seven specimen charges of false accounting – six relating to TMS and one to DMC.

The trial continues.

ENDS

It's time for sneaky Baird and her sneaky local authority to be investigated..

2009-10-15T05:39:00.001-07:00

I've just been in the Co-op. Standing there in the queue to be served, I noticed a pile of Evening Gazettes. The headline referred to two Teesside MP's refusing to give details about the letters that they had received from Sir Thomas Legg regarding the paying back of monies that they had had no right to claim for in the first place as the things that they had claimed for, had nothing at all to do with their jobs as MP's. http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/2009/10/15/two-teesside-mps-refuse-to-reveal-expenses-letters-84229-24937493/

Instinctively, without even reading the article and only seeing the headline from a distance, I knew that one of the MP's featured would be Vera Baird MP. Why did I know this?

I knew because of the secretive, underhanded, hypocritical way that she has behaved in regard to the Coatham Enclosure scheme. I knew it because on the morning in May 2007 that I phoned her and told her that an officer of the council without consent from the EA and without consulting them changed their planning condition regarding the construction of the sea defence in Coatham to benefit Persimmon Homes PLC, all she said to me was " Yeah well, they've got planning permission".

I knew this by the way she tried claiming for more than she was entitled to as a junior counsell years ago, never mind claiming for things as an MP that she was not entitled to.

I knew this by the way that she not only threatened Robert Goodwill MP into not calling for an independent investigation into the local authority in her constituency and into not showing our film in parliament 18 months ago, she wrongly threatened him by telling him she would report him to the speaker of the House when the speaker told us he had no jurisdiction outside the chamber. I knew it was her by the way that she put pressure on Mr Goodwill to pull his support right up to the day that he actually intervened in the affairs of the local authority in her constituency and showed the film in Parliament this year.

I knew that it was her because when she had stopped Robert Goodwill from calling for the independent investigation into her local authority 18 months ago, she then called for the council to hold an internal investigation to be headed by someone who was involved in the wrong doing within the council and who had been featured in Private Eye magazine three times for that behaviour.

I knew it was her by the way that she said the film "Coatham a Common Concern" was libellous but then took no legal action against it whatsoever, preferring instead to try and bully and threaten an elderly church warden by telephone into not showing it an hour or so before it was shown in Coatham church in May this year.

I knew it was her by the way that she spoke out publicly when the council and their Coatham Planning meeting was found in the High Court to have been unlawful, saying that she had known along with the Labour group that it had been unlawful all along, yet when the decision was overturned at appeal, she said nothing.

I knew that today's Gazette headline was about her because when Mr Goodwill actually did retract his support the day after he had intervened in her constituency and shown the film in Parliament and spoken out against her on local Radio, and just a few days after a major council whistleblower was paid off so his case would not go to tribunal and so air things that the council wanted to keep out of the public domain, she put out a joint statement with the council that said that the council had had claims of corruption within the council investigated by the police and the Audit Commission etc, when no such investigations had ever even taken place!

I knew it was her by the way that she encouraged people to stand as independent candidates in a local elections against Labour candidates, something that she should have been thrown out of the party for.

And I knew it because of what she said at the meeting with me and two other people in in Mrs Bridges cafe in 2006 where in response to me saying that I thought that someone may have taken a bung over the issue of Coatham she repiled that "everyone takes bungs, theres nothing new in that".

This woman is the Solicitor General of this Country. She is a senior member of this Government and as such she should be beyond reproach. She has proved herself to be less than trustworthy, less than honest and behaving in a way that is not befitting an MP never mind Solicitor General. It is high time that this woman and the local authority that she has tried her level best to protect and cover for, were investigated.

The Serious Fraud Office have already stated in writing that the council in her constituency should be investigated by the Police possibly assisted by the CPS, so why has she not heeded this or done anything about it why did she call for an internal investigation instead which was nothing more than a whitewash?

Lets have Vera Baird and her council and anyone else who has been heavily involved with them including Persimmon Homes PLC, who are already in the High Court for being 'instrumental' in a multi million pound mortgage fraud and who have been shown to have been involved in Coatham a year before it was even formerly advertised by the council as a leisure development NOT housing development, all investigated without further delay.

The smell gets stronger and stronger...

2009-10-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest report from the court case taking place at Southwark Crown Court regarding the multi million pound mortgage fraud that Persimmon homes were 'instrumental' in. With such a large involvement in this scandal, why were Persimmon homes not investigated and why were charges not brought against them?

Full Report –

October 07, 2009

PINNER, WALTHAMSTOW, SOUTH OCKENDON

Senior managers at one of Britain’s biggest homebuilders knew of problems in a deal to sell a block of flats to an accused mortgage fraudster but still went ahead with it, a court heard today (Wed).

Under the terms of the deal, Persimmon Homes sold 84 brand new apartments to Alim Barry – a Sierra Leonean national now said to have swindled millions out of high-street lenders.

Prosecutors say Barry’s shell company Atrex bought the flats for £15.25m before selling them on at inflated prices to buyers who had fraudulent mortages.
Barry and his accomplices used a network of crooked brokers, accountants and solicitors to create fake financial histories for these applicants and dupe the banks, it is claimed.

The conman has since fled the country with the profits of the scam, after swindling lenders into handing over a total £18.75m in loans, Southwark Crown Court has heard.

Although the firm is not accused of any crime, it is claimed that Persimmon was ‘instrumental’ in allowing the fraud to take place.
Persimmon solicitor Nick Knight told the court he helped draw up the deal Barry made in 2006 to buy the Hill House block in Thamesmead, South East London.

He said Atrex paid an initial deposit of £250,000 on the building, and paid the rest of the cash as the subsequent mortgage deals went through on individual flats.

Mr Knight told the court he had inserted a clause in the contract stating that if Barry did not make the payments with a set timeframe, Persimmon would be entitled to keep his deposit and offer Hill House to other buyers.
But he said that although senior managers in the company’s South East division were aware Barry was missing these deadlines, they decided to continue with the deal.

He named chairman Brendan O’Neill, managing director Edward Owens and sales director Jason Stokes as among those who were allegedly aware of the decision.

Mr Justin Cole, defending Dean Dairo, an accountant accused of helping Barry commit the fraud, asked Mr Knight why Persimmon did not simply terminate the contract.

He said: ‘You tried to protect the position of Persimmon by inserting a clause which meant that if Alim Barry was late, Persimmon could have just walked away with his deposit.
‘We have seen that what in fact happened was the absolute opposite.
‘What in fact they did was tie themselves around the waist of Mr Barry and his selling on of the flats.
‘Who made the decision to wait until then before receiving the money?’

Mr Knight replied: ‘The decision not to terminate the contract would have hinged on how the management of Persimmon South East viewed market conditions at the time.’

He named Mr Stokes and Mr O’Neill as among those who would have been involved in the decision.

Mr Cole added: ‘It would be a nonsense to suggest that Mr Owens, the managing director, would have been ignorant of what was going on.

‘The completions were happening whenever Atrex chose to send money.
‘I think we are agreed that Mr Owens must have known what was going on. And of course Mr Stokes himself.’
The solicitor replied: ‘Yes.’

Mr Knight told the court that another senior Persimmon executive, Nick Thomas, had looked at alternative buyers for the flats.
He said: ‘I think at some stage of the transaction, Mr Thomas to go back and investigate the possibility of going elsewhere.

‘I've seen in the bundle something to the effect that they had another interested party, but couldn't get as much money as under the current Atrex deal.’

In the dock alongside Dairo are Barry’s cousins Mohammed, 39, and Muctaru Barrie, 29, mortgage valuers Brad Fisher, 44, George Sourou, 43, and Sofiya Ahmed, 28, and solicitor Okwuchukwu Izuchukwu.
Mohammed Barrie, of (78) Pinewood Ave, Dartford, Kent; Izuchukwu, of (139) Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, East London; Ahmed, of (153) Howard Road, Walthamstow, East London; Dairo, of (20) Eastern Ave, South Ockendon, Essex; Fisher, of (33) Tiptree Crescent, Ilford, Essex; and Sourou, of (21) The Crescent, Ilford, Essex deny conspiracy to defraud mortgage lenders.
Muctaru Barrie, also of (78) Pinewood Place, Mohammed Barrie and Izuchukwu deny conspiracy to launder criminal property.

Joseph, of (4) Furham Field, Pinner, Middlesex, has admitted seven specimen charges of false accounting.

The trial continues.

ENDS

The trial continues...

2009-09-30T12:19:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest story from the multi million pound mortgage fraud that Persimmon homes are involved in...

September 30, 2009

THAMESMEAD, SE LONDON; ILFORD, FOREST GATE, E LONDON; SOUTH OCKENDON, ESSEX; DARTFORD, KENT; PINNER, NW LONDON.

A nurse told a court how a gang of conmen promised to turn him into a wealthy landlord overnight as part of a multi-million pound mortgage fraud.
The Sierra Leonean fraudsters duped millions out of high street mortgage lenders using a network of crooked brokers, accountants and solicitors, it is claimed.

Operating as a shell company with no assets or bank accounts, the gang bought an entire block of flats in southeast London before selling on the luxury apartments at inflated prices.

Southwark Crown Court heard that 'buyers' were recruited from within the Sierra Leonean community to apply for mortgages from banks.

Prosecutors say Persimmon Homes, one of Britain's biggest construction firms, was 'instrumental' in the scam by helping to create inflated valuations for the properties.

Ringleader Alim Barrie later fled to live off the £3.5m profits from the scam, and has never been caught.

Witness Emmanuel Blango told jurors the gang said he could buy two brand new flats worth nearly £300,000 each.

He said he met a man called 'Micky', as well as Barry’s cousin, Mohammed Barrie, who is accused of playing a leading role in the fraud.

Mr Blango initially agreed to buy one flat on condition he paid the mortgage of £800 a month and the gang paid the deposit. The fraudsters then approached him again, saying he could buy a second flat for nothing at all.

He said: 'I met a guy called Mohammed Barrie, a taller guy, slightly fair complexion. That day he was in a Liverpool football club t-shirt.
'We had a lengthy discussion on football, and because I came to the office somewhere in the Surrey Keys.

'Alimou spoke to Mohammed, and Micky and Alimou told me about the other flat.
'They tried to persuade me that it is not going to cost me anything.
'They told me: ''You will not be paying anything on this mortgage, we will rent it out for you.'''

Mr Blango said he was taken to meet a mortgage broker called George, who said he could find him a mortgage for the second flat.
He eventually declined the offer, but the gang still made a mortgage application in his name, it is claimed.

Jurors were shown the fake mortgage application claiming that Mr Blango was a self-employed therapist earning £90,000 a year.
In fact he was a psychiatric nurse, earning just £30,000.

The form was signed by mortgage valuer Sofiya Ahmed, 28, who is in the dock alongside Mohammed Barrie, 39.

Barrie and Ahmed, and Muctaru Barrie, 29, are in the dock at Southwark Crown Court alongside mortgage valuers Brad Fisher, 44, George Sourou, 43, accountant Dean Dairo, 48, and 45-year-old solicitor Okwuchukwu Izuchukwu.
Another Barrie brother, Umaru, also fled the country while on bail.

Accountant Stuart Joseph, 43, has admitted inventing financial references for fraudulent mortgage applicants, the court heard.

The court heard the shell company Atrex bought 84 flats in the Hill House block in Thamesmead from Persimmon for £15.25m and sold them for £18.75m - a profit of £3.5m.

Persimmon makes over 10,000 homes a year in the UK.

Mohammed Barrie, of (78) Pinewood Ave, Dartford, Kent; Izuchukwu, of (139) Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, East London; Ahmed, of (153) Howard Road, Walthamstow, East London; Dairo, of (20) Eastern Ave, South Ockendon, Essex; Fisher, of (33) Tiptree Crescent, Ilford, Essex; and Sourou, of (21) The Crescent, Ilford, Essex deny conspiracy to defraud mortgage lenders between October 1, 2005 and November 1, 2006.
Muctaru Barrie, also of (78) Pinewood Place, Mohammed Barrie and Izuchukwu deny conspiracy to launder criminal property.
Joseph, of (4) Furham Field, Pinner, Middlesex, has admitted seven specimen charges of false accounting.

The trial continues.

ENDS

Why has no investigation into this little lot ever taken place?

2009-09-25T03:28:00.000-07:00

Following the revelation that Persimmon Homes PLC are involved in a multi million pound fraud case being heard as we speak in London ( how on earth has this not even been mentioned in the national papers? ) I decided to go back through the things that have come to light about this developer, the Coatham Scheme and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, in order to try and put all of the pieces of the jigsaw together. This is an attempt to time line all of the information that we have. It's a long posting and it will take you a bit of time to read, but it shows you exactly what has happened here over the five years of our campaign.....

The following facts are all documented or can be backed up with witnesses.

1. Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and Persimmon homes PLC were both involved in Coatham in 2001, a year before the scheme was even advertised. They had both used the same solicitors and the same consultants who did surveys and reports about the state of the contaminated land in Coatham Enclosure and the gross housing requirements of the Borough, of which Coatham was included.

2. Though the Ombudsman was informed about this, they informed the person who brought it to their attention that there was nothing that they could do because it wasn't brought to their attention within a year of it happening. Though it was pointed out that it had only come to light in 2008, the Ombudsman still took no action.

3. Even though Persimmon Homes PLC are a builder of houses and not leisure and even though leisure developers submitted plans for leisure schemes at the time, Persimmon homes PLC, one year after employing the same solicitors and consultants as the council who had been doing surveys in regard to Coatham and as the biggest housing developer in the country, were taken on as the councils preferred developer to provide a leisure scheme.

4. Though the biggest housing builder was taken on by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council to develop a leisure scheme, no 106 agreement was ever been signed between the council and Persimmon which ties Persimmon to financially providing any leisure facilities with a leisure scheme.

5. Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council have continually claimed that the people of Redcar had to have Persimmons' houses built on their coastline in order to attract funding for the leisure facilities in the Coatham Enclosure Scheme. But to date, no funding from either the private or public sector, ( save half a million pounds from Sport England ) and despite the ex CEO Colin Moore and Councillor Vera Moody saying publicly that all the funding had been secured, has been attracted by the Council for leisure facilities.
The council have always realised that there would be a shortfall in funding for the leisure scheme and as a consequence they have always had prudential borrowing down in their costings though they have never drawn the public attention to this. This level of prudential borrowing has risen progressively over a period of five or six years from £3,000,000 originally to what they are currently seeking to borrow ( something that politicians from all sides within the council and the MP Vera Baird said they could never support ) the sum of approx £15,000,000 for the baths/leisure centre which will be in the scheme and which will result in increased council tax.
However, all other leisure facilities have attracted no funding at all even though Persimmon have planning permission for the 359 houses. Persimmon having planning permission is something that the council said would definitely secure funding. But as it stands now, the owners of the eyesore known as the Mungle jungle have attracted no funding whatsoever to turn it into an extreme spotrs centre despite now being given a 125 year lease, the bingo hall has gone from the scheme as has the single screen cinema and as has the most important element of all, the visitor centre, which was going to be the thing that turned the Coatham scheme into a visitor destination of regional importance, but which is now being replaced by a youth club which includes a drugs counselling centre that as it stands now, has seen the local residents being consulted about and which doesn't have planning permission because it has never been a part of the scheme from the beginning. It has been added through desperation as all the other pie in the sky leisure facilities have gone from the scheme.

6. Persimmon Homes PLC are funding no leisure elements of the scheme whatsoever. They are being employed by the council as a developer who will oversee the construction of all aspects of this development ( project manager ). Infact the council have already done this with the refurbishment of the boating lake. Persimmon were acting as agents for the work that was carried out on the boating lake and it was them who employed Hellens Construction from Newcastle to carry out the work, not Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

7. In the first instance, the work on the boating lake was going to cost just £60,000 to which Persimmon were going to make a contribution. For some reason, something that the council have refused to answer properly, this cost has risen to over £850,000 NEARLY ONE MILLION POUNDS, and Persimmon homes PLC contributed nothing.

8. In February 2005, the council held a three day exhibition about this scheme in the Coatham Bowl. The council put out comment cards for the public to sign. Two weeks after the closing date for the comment cards to be submitted was passed, a source from the council informed me that the council, because they hadn't gotten enough comment cards giving the scheme the thumbs up, were going to put out a scaled down version of the exhibition, back up on the day of the Half Marathon in the leisure centre reception, with comment cards available for people to sign. They hoped that they would attract more positive comment. Sure enough on that Sunday as the source had said, the exhibition was back out along with comment cards. When we questioned staff as to when the exhibition went back up, they lied and said Friday. We knew that it hadn't gone back out then nor the following day of Saturday, because we had been in to check.

9. When we asked Councilors Vera Moody and Chris Abbott both had different explanations. Vera Moody said she knew nothing about it. Chris Abbott said it was part of a touring exhibition that was going round the borough ( but which didn't ). Officer Peter Ellis said he would look into it and Ian Hopley didn't get back to us. When we got back to him much later, he had adopted Chris Abbotts standpoint.

10. On the Wednesday of the councils exhibition about forty people demonstrated both outside and inside the Coatham Bowl. It was half term and the crowd comprised mainly mums, kids and old people. when we went into the bowl and started asking Ian Hopley and Vera Moody and the Persimmon reps questions, security guards that had been employed became very heavy handed. One old man was pushed to the floor and we were told we had to get out which we did. Shortly after this, three or four vans of police, with CS gas at the ready, were called by the council to deal with the 'mob' outside. When the police saw what they were faced with, they looked puzzled, got back into their vans and left.

11. I was barred from using the leisure centre and the Coatham Bowl by TVLL, the company who run the borough's leisure facilities, for being threatening and abusive on the day of the half marathon. I complained because this was not true. So they held an investigation and even had witnesses give evidence to one of TVLL's managers on one afternoon in 2005. When the video that we had made on the day of the half marathon was produced and shown and it was clear that TVLL's version of events was untrue, I was allowed back into the leisure centre and Coatham Bowl.

12. At anything that the council have put on about Coatham, security guards have always been employed. Even at public meetings. At the LDF meeting at the Library in Redcar in 2005, they assaulted an old man who had been invited to go by the council. They also threw out a journalist for counting empty seats in the meeting room. The council had told members of our group that the LDF meeting, even though it was a public meeting and it involved every last person in the borough, was by invitation only and that all the places were full. When we, along with the journalist turned up to get in, we discovered that far from being full, the room had only 8 or 9 people in it, counting council officers.

13.The councils consultation has been terrible throughout and this was re-iterated by the Labour Group in a press release that they issued when they were in opposition in 2006. Although when they took control of the council in 2007, they then said that the relevant and satisfactory consultation had been carried out?

14.In March 2005, we put on our own exhibition over three days in Coatham Church. Some of art, photography and musics biggest names locally took part and over 2000 people attended. Names like Joe cornish, Ian Mcdonald, Len Tabner, Vin Garbutt, Stu Macfarland, The Teesside Fettlers and Walter Trout all took part. It didn't draw breath in the local press.

15. When the scheme first came into the public consciousness the number of houses in the scheme stood at 250. However, the more that people objected to the scheme, the more the number of houses rose?

16. The council and Persimmon had both known for a number of years that the area was contaminated with things such as cyanide, arsenic, lead, etc and at surface level too, but had said nothing. They also knew that it was home to unexploded mines from WW2. When, after being pointed in the right direction by a source from the council, we discovered in the Coatham planning application the existence of these things and we made it public, the council not only smeared us as being conspiracy theorists and such, they point blank denied that they were at surface level and tried everything that they could in order to say there was no threat. However, at the Coatham Planning meeting, they admitted the contaminants and mines were there but said they would be sorted out. Makes you wonder how when according to the planning application, clearing the site of both would be so costly it would make the scheme financially unviable.

17. On September 7th ot 8th 2007, despite the Planning application stating that there had to be strict safe working practises followed because of the contaminated land and because of the potential prescence of mines, the council dug into the Northern boundary of the Site. When the HSE were called the work was stopped. Three days later, Cllr Mike Findley, Wayne Davis and myself, visited McAlpines Yard in Grangetown.
I had been tipped off by an employee of McAlpines, that the workers who had dug into the Northern Boundary of the site had been instructed to scatter the soil/sand that was dug away, onto the beach at Coatham at low tide mark that but when the HSE were called and work was stopped, the potentially hazardous material was then taken to McAlpines yard and placed under a tarpualin with a sign on it saying "Contaminated material DO NOT UNCOVER".
When Cllr Findley, Wayne and I got to the yard sure enough, there was the material under the tarpaulin and sign that I had been told about. We took photos and then waited in the reception. When Council officer Brian McClean came to McAlpines yard looking shaken he kept us waiting in the reception for about half an hour before ushering us back into the yard.
The tarpaulin and the sign had been removed and Mr McClean tried to make out that there was nothing wrong with the soil/sand. When we asked him where the sign and tarpaulin had gone he made out that he didnt know what we were talking about? so we showed him the photographs that we had taken. At that, he became very confrontational and he told us that we had to leave the site. He told us that tests were being done on the material, but no results of these tests were ever provided.
Back at home I called the now ex CEO to ask him about what had happened. His secretary told me that he would not talk to me until I learned how to speak to people. He then put out an email round the council saying that I had thereatened and been abusive to, his secretary. Fortunately, I had taped my conversation with his secretary and I posted it on a local website to prove that I had not been abusive or threatening at all.

18. All of these facts were given to the HSE. A man called Mr Bill McKay or Bill McCallum spoke to me a few times. He told me that McAlpines, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and Persimmon Homes had all provided him with information to show that the area where the digging had taken place was not in the contaminated area or the area suspected of being home to unexploded mines. We then provided him with maps to show that this was not true and that infact the area that had been dug into, was suspected of both. When I called him back to discuss this with him and he was obviously aware that the things the Council etc had told him were untrue, he told me that and I quote, "I was missing the bigger picture".

Mr McCallum/McKay left the HSE shortly after this.

19. Despite Persimmons' own planning application stating that these contaminants are two and a half times over the Soil Guidance Values and despite Gary Cutter from the Environment Agency telling me that Persimmons' 'remedy' of clean capping the whole area with just two feet six inches of clean top soil would not be enough, the HSE and their head Sandra Caldwell, have taken no action whatsoever. Even though I have asked them the question how can something be two and a half times over its safe limit and still be safe, they have refused to answer and preferred to adopt the stance taken by the council and Persimmon that everything is okay.

20. In May 2007, seven foot high steel barriers were erected all around the site that initially barricaded people into their own homes. No risk assesments had been done by McAlpines or the Cleveland Firebrigade or the council. I took this information to the HSE once again and Sandra Caldwell told me that the council and McAlpines had informed her that all of the necessary risk assesments had been done before the fences were erected? When I pointed out to her that an FOI act request had shown that no such assesments had been done, she refused to answer and she declined to meet with us despite saying before the planning application had been passed in April 2007, that she would.

21. Despite a local environmentalist called Graham Skinner from the company Naturally Wild doing surveys on the land to show that the area was not only home to lizards and toads but also a feeding and breeding ground for bats, shortly after this information was given to the council in 2006 and despite project manager Ian Hopley knowing about it, the area was then sprayed with deadly poison to kill Ragwort. As no Ragwort had been growing there this was unusual. But when I approached the officer in the department who had authorized the spraying on that sunny June weekend, he told me that he had not been informed about the existence of any of the wildlife that had been brought to Ian Hopleys attention.

22. In November 2006, from absolutely nowhere, plans for a 5GP surgery that would be incorporated into the leisure centre, appeared in the Coatham planning application. Despite this, none of the councillors on the relevant health committees etc, had any knowledge about it and there had been no public consultation whatsoever. When I asked questions I was phoned one Thursday night at 8pm by PCT manager Stephen Childs, who told me that nothing was definite and that no decision had been taken by the PCT to add these plans to the application. After digging around a little further, it came to light that Mr Childs did know all about it and that it was definite because uncovered documents showed that he had done a presentation to the board of the local PCT recommending that the Coatham surgery be moved over to the new Coatham Leisure centre in June 06 and that the board had agreed! In panic, a public consultation exercise was arranged for early January 2007. At the first meeting in the Coatham Memorial Hall, Stephen Childs told a packed room that the decision to add the 5GP surgery to the Coatham Planning application had been a speculative move by Persimmon homes PLC and an officer of the council who he refused to name, yet this was never minuted?

23. But even worse was to come to light in March 2007, because who was sitting on the board of the PCT and attending that meeting? Mrs Veronica Moore wife of the now ex CEO of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, Colin Moore ( Something that the leader of the council George Dunning described as naughty, but did nothing about? ). Infact, Mrs Moore had done a visit/tour of the existing Coatham surgery with the CEO of the PCT in the first instance, regarding this matter. So here we had a situation whereby the CEO of the council who had been pushing all aspects of the Coatham scheme as the head of the council and who had, for some reason, taken the planning department under that of his own, was pushing this 5GP surgery which was now being described as a medical village and there was his wife pushing the same 5GP surgery as a non executive board member of the local PCT.

24. Shortly after this information was made public, Mrs Moore resigned her position as non executive board member of the PCT. At the count for the local elections in May 2007, when confronted with this, the ex CEO denied that his wife had voted in favour and said that she had voted against the 5GP surgery being added to the Coatham leisure centre at the meeting in June 2006. When presented with the facts that there had been six or seven votes in favour and one abstention so where was the vote against? Mr Moore refused to answer and left. The ex-finance officer Ray Richardson tried to convince us that Mr and Mrs Moore had never spoken about this at home.

25. It recently came to light that this 5GP surgery or medical village will now no longer be a part of the Coatham Leisure centre or scheme and Stephen Childs has left the department within the PCT, that was involved with it all.

26. The council have always maitained that they are going to sell the land in the Coatham Enclosure to Persimmon for £5,600,000. But an FOI request earlier this year showed that the land had been valued at £4,500,000 at the back end of 2007. So therefore, the land is being sold to Persimmon for either approximately five and a half or four and a half million pounds. This land now has planning permission to build THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY NINE HOMES UPON IT. Earlier this year, I made contact with some councillors in Middlesbrough who were trying to save Longridge Wood in the nice area of Marton. They provided me with information that showed the Middlesbrough Borough Council were prepared to sell Longridge Wood, an area of approximately seven acres, to Yuill builders who had no planning permission but who wanted to build just seventy two houses on the land, for £8,500,000, thats three million pounds more than the area of Coastline in Coatham which is five times its size and which has actual planning permission to build five times the number of houses?

27. The area of the Coatham Enclosure is a zone three, high flood risk area. The Shoreline Management Plan states that it is a ntural defence from the sea and that as such, their standpoint is "Hold the line do nothing". They would be prepared to let this area flood rather than spend money paying for a sea defence to protect it when there is nothing there to protect. Therefore, if Persimmon homes want to build houses there it is their responsibility to fund and maintain the sea defence. This responsibility is set down in the councils development brief for Coatham and is part of the Government guideline PPG25 which was tightened up in 2006 to become PPS25. Though this council under this Government Guideline should have directed Persimmon away from building on the floodplain in Coatham, the council have actively encouraged them to build there and done all they can to help them. They have...

A. Paid for Persimmons' legal and Consultancy fees to the tune of £140,000. ( This is something that some architects from Newcastle told me was "extremely dodgy" )

b. Paid for a new classroom at Coatham school which was supposed to be Persimmons/' responsibility.

C. Paid for the entire cost of the boating lake refurbishment which Persimmon were going to contribute to.

D. Taken out a joint indemnity insurance with Persimmon incase the truth about the scheme gets out into the public domain. ( This is something that a Friends of the Earth planner told us was unheard of )

E. They are paying, through prudential borrowing, millions of pounds for the new leisure centre/Baths.

F. And they are now liable financially for a multi million pound sea defence which is the sole responsibility of Persimmon Homes PLC. This they have admitted under the FOI act and in an email from Cabinet member for Economic Development Mark Hannon.

28. One of the 47 planning conditions that have to be met before work can begin, is connected with the construction of this sea defence. In the first instance at the Coatham Planning meeting, Persimmon had to submit plans and designs to the Local Authority which were in keeping with what the EA required in order to keep the area safe from flooding. Shortly after the planning meeting, the EA tightened this planning condition up to read that no houses shall be built before the sea defence is constructed. However, without consulting the EA and without their consent, Officer Simon Dale went against what the planners at the council had already agreed with the EA and changed the tightened up planning condition to read that no houses could be occupied until the sea defence was constructed. This massively benefitted Persimmon. Yet no action has ever been taken against Simon Dale by the council or miraculously, the EA either?
Infact, under the FOI act we obtained emails which show that the EA have been colluding with the council. In one email the EA clearly state that they have to do all they can to help the council because a lot of money and their reputation are at stake. Since when was the councils reputation or a lot of money ever been a consideration for the EA when dealing with issues of flooding? Both the EA and more recently DEFRA, despite being provided with all of the facts about this shoddy episode, have prevaricated, ignored, passed me from pillar to post and taken no action against those responsible whatsoever.
EA officer Gary Cutter, who provided us with so much information and who we were in regular contact with in 2006/07, has now been moved to a different department.

29. Since the start of our campaign a whole host of senior officers who have all been directly involved with Coatham have left the employment of the council. They are Peter Ellis, Dr Joan Rees, Bob Barnes, Nick Mtthews, Colin Moore, Ray Richardson. Moore and Richardson both left on grounds of ill health. However Moore, who conveniently announced his departure shortly after the Coatham scheme was forced through during the period of Purdah, turned up working for Cumbria Council just months after he left Redcar? He was supposed to be employed at Cumbria council on an interim basis but it lasted some 14 or 15 months. Not only that he left [RCBC] with a two year enhanced pay deal that was worth over £369,000.

30. Moore and Richardson have been featured on two or three occasions in Private Eye for their disgraceful behaviour. They have been shown to have surpressed and replaced financial audit reports, in collusion with the Audit Commission, that showed that this council was not a four start authority at all. They have been shown as being in charge of a council that was changing council minutes and awarding themselves extra days paid holiday that were worth thousands of pounds and which weren't reported to council until after they were taken. They have both been featured in many tribunal cases which saw them being found to have been deliberately disingenuous, changing their evidence overnight, concealment, sharp practising, bullying and intimidating. In one tribunal, Simon Dale was found to have brought the council into disrepute for his involvement in the unfair dismissal of a council employee and the ignoring of a tribunal order to re-instate him. Yet in none of these cases were these less than credible and less than professional people sacked or reprimanded. Infact they all were given huge pay rises and in Moores case, despite the leader of the council calling for Moores investigation twice in opposition, he then gave him a glowing reference and praised him in the newspapers when he left?

31. When Moore left, he had left the council with a £12,000,000 black hole in its budget, under his guidance it had been found guilty of maladminstration twice within a six month period by the Ombudsman, it was downgraded to a two star authority which in part, I believe, was down to the fact that we presented a dossier that ran into hundreds of pages to the District Auditor at a meeting that we had with her in 2008. The dossier included details of the surpressed Audit Report and so they couldn't do anything else but be seen to be doing what should have happened in the first place. What is interesting here is that an Audit Commission employee who had supposedly been invloved in the surpression and replacement scandal and who had been moved onto a different department when the story broke in Private Eye, was brought back into his old department to sign off the corporate assesment that we had had involvement with to a degree?

32. The council were then branded, along with just six other councils in the country, NEGLIGENT for having invested money in Icelandic banks against warnings.

33. Council Officer Nick Matthews was supposed to go to Tribunal over his unfair dismissal as Assistant Chief Executive. It was a tribunal that was set to rock the council because of the detailed information that was going to be aired in public about the councils wrongdoing. Both I and another colleague were to be witnesses for Mr Matthews and provided detailed statements to his solicitor. On the day after our film "Coatham, a common concern" which showed to a certain extent what was going on in Coatham was shown in the houses of parliament, Mr Matthews solicitors contacted us and informed us that his case had been settled out of court with the council. How convenient. More to the point, what was the cost to the tax payer to silence Mr Matthews?

34. The film "Coatham a common concern" was shown in Parliament by Robert Goodwill MP, MP for the neighbouring constituency of Scarborough and Whitby. I contacted him in 2007 as my Girlfriends MP telling him what had happened here and asking him to help as no-one was doing anything here in Redcar and Cleveland or in any of the Government bodies set up to protect the public from such abuses by those in power. We met him and showed him the documentation that we had. He agreed to take the unprecedented step of intervening in another MP's ( Vera Bairds ) constituency by showing our film in parliament and calling for an independent investigationbecause he said that if he did not then he would be and I quote "neglecting his duty".

35. What did Vera Baird do when she found out about this? She wrongly threatened Mr Goodwill with reporting him to the speaker of the house of Commons. I wrote to the speaker and he told me that he no jurisdiction outside the chamber, but Mr Goodwill refused to cooperate. Ms Baird then called publicly for an internal investigation by the council and who did she call to head the investigation? Ray Richardson the now ex finance officer who had featured so badly in so many tribunals and in Private Eye. This was no more than a whitewash and an attempt to cover up. As it was no investigation ever took place.

36. But throughout 2008 as I continued to give Mr Goodwill the details of what was going on here such as the council being found guilty of bias and pre-determination in the High Court and about the council being downgraded to a two star authority, he once agreed to show the film and call for an investigation. This was barely touched upon in the local press as wasn't the fact that the council had been found guilty of bias in the High Court? But in May this year, we showed the film in Parliament. It was staggering that despite the massive step of an MP intervening in the Solicitor Generals constituency being taken because he was concerned about what was going on here in regard to Coatham, no-one touched it in the press?

37. Right up to the screening of the film, Vera Baird had tried to put more pressure on Mr Goodwill not to show the film. Even at the screening he started to read out part of an email that she had sent him a day or two previous trying to put pressure on him to stop. Mr Goodwill had been given all of the facts and all of the details backed up with all of the documentation before the film was screened. He had even been sent a proof of a leaflet that was being distributed in Redcar before the screening providing those facts and asking the question is the council corrupt? and he had no worries about it and still went ahead with the screening.
Yet the day after the screening, he retracted his support publicly and issued a joint statement with the council and Vera Baird on the councils website denouncing our film, our group and the content of the film, because the film was seven minutes longer than the unfinished version that he had already watched in his constituency office in Scarborough? These things just didn't add up especially as he had been provided with all of the facts both included and not included, in the final version of the film. But what was most unusual was that in Mr Goodwills statement in the middle paragraph, he brought out allegations about corruption in the council that we had not made publicly ourselves? More than this, Mr Goodwills retraction of support for our campaign and film was a massive coup for the council but whilst they put the story and the joint statements onto their website, they didn't issue a press release about it and it never got into the papers?

38. One of the facts that Mr Goodwill was given by us, along with the emails to back it up, was the fact that Vera Baird encouraged people in Redcar to stand as independents against Labour candidates in the local elections of 2007. She should be thrown out of the party for this and Mr Goodwill told me so, but he didn't make any issue of it whatsoever.

39. At the screening in Parliament, were two independent councilors from Doncaster. They had come along after being invited because Dr Joan Rees who had been so involved with the contraversial Coatham Scheme and who had left suddenly from her massively paid job in the 'four star authority' of Redcar and Cleveland, had been involved in the undervaluing of a bloodstock farm in Doncaster and the seemingly shady dealings that had taken place there. This story had also appeared in Private Eye.

40. The two Doncaster councilors told us that from what they had seen in the film that they knew, through their experience of the Donnygate scandal, that we had massive problems up here in Redcar and Cleveland.

41. Despite sending all of the information regarding what is going on here to a manager at the Homes and Communities Agency, who are supposed to be funding the Coatham scheme to a certain degree, the H+C have not retracted their funding for this scheme. However, so I have been informed, the person that I originally made contact with has moved on to another department now.

42. In 2006, I received hate mail telling me to back off from the campaign if I knew what was good for me. It was very similar in style and wording to hate mail received by Cllrs Mike Findley and Mary Lanigan and which had been placed in their pigeon holes within the council. I reported it to the police and a Seargent Mandy Savery arranged to come to my house one Sunday in April 2006, to take finger prints of the people who had touched it.
Mary Lanigan was in attendance. Whilst in my house, Seargent Savery informed me, in front of my friends and Councilor Lanigan, that the police knew that the hate mail that I had received had come from someone within the council. In August 2006,after hearing nothing back from the police about the results of the finger prints that had been taken in my house some months earlier, I phoned the police. A seargent Schofield told me that none of my friends prints had matched those on the letter. When I asked what was happening as a result of this, I was informed that the police were not going to pursue it further because of a lack of resources.
I pointed out that that wasn't fair because when two young men had been fly posting in the borough accusing Colin Moore amongst others of being corrupt the police, at the insistance of the council, had investigated the two young men responsible for thirteen weeks, detained them for 13 hours, confiscated computers and personal items, took DNA samples and then a few weeks later just let them off without charge, recommending that they only agreed to a meeting with the ex CEO Colin Moore for which basically resulted in nothing more than Moore castigating me to them and giving them a dressing down.
When I asked if I could speak to Seargent Savery, the officer who had taken the prints months previous, I was told that she had been moved to another position in Cleveland Police in Middlesbrough.

43. After complaining to the IPCC, an Inspector Kevin Scott came to my house. He tried to do all that he could to get me to stop pursuing the issue and withdraw my complaint and I refused. He then told me that he could not make people that I suspected within the council of sending me the hate mail, cooperate. I told him who I thought it could be and he left with the list of suspects. In December 2007 I was called to his office in Guisborough with Mary Lanigan where both he and Inspector Colin Askey then informed me that no investigations had been made but the police did not now think that the hate mail came from someone in the council, it wasn't as bad as they had first thought and that as far as the CPS were concerned my case now no longer constituted a crime? When I asked them why they had gone to such lengths on behalf of the council over the issue of the fly posters, an irate Colin Askey pointed out to me that the young men in question were and I quote, 'guilty'. "So why didn't you prosecute them instead of letting them off" I asked? He did not answer.

44. Early the following year, I went back to the IPCC upset with details of what had taken place. Whilst on one hand sounding sympathetic the man who I spoke to on the otherhand, told me there was nothing that the IPCC could now do as it had fallen outside their time frame for investigation.

45. Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council were spending tens of thousands of pounds in corporate hospitality at Gisborough Hall. Shortly after being summoned to a meeting with ex CEO Colin Moore on the recommendation of Cleveland Police, one of the young men who had been fly posting, was given a job at Gisborough Hall. He is now a mananger there.

46. In 2007, proceedings to take the council to Judicial Review over the issue of the Coatham Planning meeting began. In December 2007 a High Court Judge ruled that the Coatham Planning meeting had been unlawful due to bias and pre-determination and the planning permission was quashed. That same month both the MP Vera Baird and the leader of the council, publicly admitted that the Judge had infact agreed with them in ruling the planning process unlawful, because they had known all along that the Coatham Planning meeting was wrong and that they had warned the old Lib Dem/Tory coalition against going ahead with it. Vera would have known it was wrong all along because she's a QC and is the Solicitor General of the country.
However, this statement begged more questions than it answered because if that was the case, then why did the Labour group take part in the Coatham Planning Meeting? Why did they have Labour Members vote in favour of it when they knew it was so wrong? Why did they do nothing to get it called in by GONE when they had the chance to and when they had put out a press release to say that it was tainted and it would come back to haunt the council? Why did they pass a cross party motion along with the Lib Dems and the Conservatives in the council shortly after they were re-elected in May 2007, giving the Coatham scheme the green light so it could be completed as soon as possible when they knew it was so wrong and when they and the Labour MP had criticized the scheme so strongly in the run up to the election in 2006/07?
And finally why, when they knew how wrong the planning meeting/process was, did they challenge the judicial review that was brought against it and in so doing spend thousands of pounds of public money defending something that they knew was unlawful all along?

47. So guilty were the council, that they didn't even challenge the High Court judges ruling that had been made against them. But even though the ruling had been made against the council, it was Persimmon Homes PLC who appealled against the High Court decision? The appeal case was heard in Summer 08 and miraculously Persimmon Homes PLC overturned the original High Court ruling?
I say miraculously, because not only were councilors who had pushed the scheme for all it was worth and voted in favour of public money being spent on it, allowed to sit on the planning committee...
A letter had been distributed around the councilors a day or so before the meeting, urging members to vote in favour. The members of the committee didn't even mention this until Councilor Mary Lanigan brought it up at the planning meeting. Members of the committee then admitted that they had received this letter. The councils legal officer blamed this letter as a stunt that the protestors had been responsible for, but this is completely untrue and would have been impossible to do,
The planning committee had been treated to lunch and drinks before the planning meeting took place,
The now leader of the council George Dunning at the last minute, replaced a Labour member of the committee and sat on the planning committee when he shouldn't have, because he had been part of the Coatham scrutinee committee for at least two years and therefore inelligible to take part,
LibDem Councilor Irene Curr gave evidence in support of the scheme when she shouldn't have because she was on the board of TVLL the company who had already submitted a tender and been confirmed as the company who would be running the new leisure centre as part of the scheme at the time of the planning meeting. TVLL had also been running leisure centres in the borough for the council for many years. Councillor Curr also failed to declare this interest to the planning committee,
Another Liberal Democrat councillor who stood down as councillor the following month in the local elections, said openly that he was going to vote for planning permission to be granted, because he didn't like the way that members of the public who gave evidence spoke about the officers of the council?
A man who I now know, but who was unknown to me at the time, sat next to me during the whole planning meeting. Towards the end of the meeting, without provocation, he turned round to me and told me that he was and I quote "going to have his day with me". Other people heard him say this. I did not respond. Shortly after Peter Jordan from Persimmon homes gave his evidence, this man then leapt to his feet and shouted to the packed room that I had threatened Mr Jordan as he had returned to his seat. Members of the public told him to sit down as no such threats had been made. It has been suggested that the man in question was a plant sent by the Liberal Democrats to cause trouble.

He stood for them in the elections the following month, but failed to get elected.

He was elected this year in a by election.

Most incredible of all, was the fact that the development agreement for Coatham was signed two days BEFORE the local elections in 2007 before the new Labour administration, who had been promising to take the scheme back to the drawing board were re-elected, and two or three weeks BEFORE the council even knew if GONE were going to call the scheme in for a public inquiry?
The Ombudsman refused to take any action against the council or any of the officers or members who had forced it through when they were originally found in the high court to have acted unlawfully.

48. Given that there had been over 2000 objections to the planning application, a 10,000 signature petition against the scheme had been submitted to GONE and the council in 2005 but not even mentioned at the planning meeting, there were a thousand calls for a public inquiry handed into Vera Bairds office to be given to GONE, the scheme was clouded in controversy, a member of the council themselves had called for GONE to call it in and the MP herself had even put out a letter to the whole town telling the public that the LibDem/Tory coalition should get the scheme called in, GONE gave the scheme the go ahead and the thumbs up?

49. It came to light shortly after the planning meeting in 2007, that GONE had given Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council ONE MILLION POUNDS to help them attract funding, before the planning meeting took place in 2006.

50. A few months after the planning meeting in 2007, our solicitor drew our attention to the fact that the High Court Judge who had originally ruled against the council had been promoted to appeal court judge by none other than Vera Baird MP's department as Solicitor General.

51. In Summer 2008 after the appeal court had overturned the original ruling of the High Court and despite stating in the press that both she and the Labour group leader had both known all along how wrong the Coatham Planning process was wrong, the MP Vera Baird and Labour group leader George Dunning said nothing. They knew how wrong it was, they knew it and they had said so publicly but did they voice their dismay at the High court ruling being overturned at appeal? No, they kept quiet?

52. In late 2006, after being informed by the council that they were not going to have their lease renewed, the owners of the caravan parks lease Lido Leisure, started legal proceedings. This made the local press. We provided Lido Leisure with information to assist their legal action. It was due to go to the High Court early in 2007, but instead, the action was dropped and the council sold both the Redcar caravan site and the Saltburn Caravan site to Lido Leisure for an undisclosed amount.

53. In 2005, Vera Bairds secretary Peter Scott, now cabinet member for Corporate Resources, leaked a letter to me that had been sent to Vera Baird from the ex CEO Colin Moore. In that letter he lied stating that I had acted violently towards a female councillor at the Coatham Exhibition that February. This is a complete and utter lie. But more importantly than Moores attempts to smear and denegrate was the part of the letter that stated that if she distanced herself from me and our campaign, "THEN IN RETURN" he would agree to meet her and answer her questions. This is proof of this unelected officer of the council, completely subventing the council and acting as a politician which should be well outside of his remit.

54. Individuals within the council have done all that they can to smear and denegrate and lie about people who have supported this campaign over five and a half years. We have been described as a rabble, a mob, anarchists, undemocratic, liars etc. I myself have had Cllrs Chris Abbott and Dave Fitzpatrick start an untrue smear campaign that I was a member of the BNP when I am not, nor ever have been. I took them to the standards board for this but the Standards Board did nothing accepting the councils legal officers explanation that it was just political banter in the run up to the General election which I stood in as independent in 2005. A decision I took in March 2005, 6 months after the smear campaign began.

55. In October 2006, the LibDems issued a 'newsletter' that claimed that Coatham councillors had been sent threatening emails and letters, abused over the phone late at night and spat at in the street. They were careful not to mention anyones name in this drivel, though they did refer to the 'lead protestor' which everyone would agree that I am. These allegations have never been substantiated, copies of these letters have never been produced but more than this and bearing in mind the severity of their claims, the police have never been involved. Neither I, nor any of our group have been arrested or questioned or prosecuted over anything to do with our campaign in Coatham.

56. However, despite taking the facts out in over 25 letters that have been delivered to the whole of the twon and to the borough on two occasions, depite printing all of the facts, the council whilst calling us liars, has NEVER taken any legal action against any of the things that we have made public, which is surprising if we had been lying so much? Even in the case of our film "Coatham a common concern", the council and the MP have described it as libellous and lying, yet they have not taken any legal action whatsoever against its makers or to try to prevent it legally from being shown to the public of the town and borough. To date between 800 and 1000 people have seen it.

57. Whilst Vera Baird MP has described the film as being libellous, the only step she has taken to try and stop it being shown, was when she phoned the elderly Church warden of Coatham church on the opening night of three screenings and tried to intimidate him into not showing it. He did not bow down to her threats or bullying. I have a sworn written statement from the warden.

58. In late 2006, I was approached by a family from East Cleveland. Their son had been wrongly implicated in a fracas that had taken place outside a public house in Loftus. As a result of this, later on that same night, he was dragged into this pub and assaulted by people inside. The owner of the pub was, at the time, the deputy leader of the council and cabinet member for culture tourism and leisure. Whilst the young man was inside the pub, youths outside smashed a window of the pub.and kicked the doors which had been shut tight. This was all caught on CCTV video tape as were the images of the deputy leader of the council emerging from the pub wielding a chain in a threatening manner and chasing these youths out of view whilst other people who had come out of the pub with him, broke up what appears to be a 'for sale' sign, to use as batons.

59. The police are then obviously called and the young man who had been assaulted in the pub, was taken away. As a result of this the young mans parents complained to the police about the behaviour of the deputy leader of the council, but the police told the young mans parents that it would not be in the best interests of the public to charge him. The young mans parents gave me a letter telling me what had happened, along with a copy of the subsequent court notes and a copy of the CCTV footage and I put the notes and the letter onto this site. Shortly after it appeared on this site in January 2007, three detectives called at the young mans house wanting to know where I had got the information from? The young mans parents refused to co-operate. The police then spent six months trying to fit a crime to me posting the details of what had happened onto this site, when no crime either civilly or criminally had been committed. They acted on behalf of this councillor over a civil issue. The police acting on someones behalf over a civil issue is just unheard of. I was asked in to just have a talk to a detective in June that year about this issue. In front of my solicitor, they admitted that they had spent 6 months trying to fit a crime to me posting on this site. I told them in no uncertain terms that they were a disgrace and that in doing what they had done, they were clearly just trying to intimidate and frighten me. I told them if it did not stop, then I would take it to the press.

60. The police and the CPS took no further action.

61. In 2004/2005 I had a death threat made to me over the phone when other people were present. I had another threatening call left on my girlfriends phone on the day that the councils exhibition started in February 2005. I had many threatening and nasty text messages sent to me. But even though I complained to the police and even though I had the numbers stored on the mobile phone from the texts that had been sent, the police told me that they couldn't investigate. They told me that they wouldn't be able to find who was responsible. When I had the death threat I went straight to the police station in Redcar and had a chat with a great police seargent. I told him about the call and what I thought about it and as to who it may have come from.

62.When the next threatening call came and I went back to the police station, I asked for the police seargent that I had spoken to before but I was told that he had been moved to another station.

63. In 2006, the affair of Councillor Steve Kay and the independent groups secretary hit the front page of the Evening Gazette. Steve Kay, the cabinet member for education somehow kept his job. It was Mr Kays cavorting with the independent groups secretary in council offices that led to the splitting up of the independents into two factions, the Independents and the East Cleveland Independents. The East Cleveland Independents comprised Cllr Dave Fitzpatrick and Cllr Steve Kay. Despite having only TWO people in the group, they have been allowed to be classed as a group and able to have a leader on leaders salary for approximately six years.

64. In March 2006, we released the 'Informer' news sheet. Whilst the council, once again, dismissed its contents as lies, they did not challenge or attempt to disprove any of the things that we had said. On the morning that we picked up the Informer from the printers we were informed by the printer that someone from the council had phoned three times trying to intimidate them into not releasing the news sheet to us. The printer was told that things had been printed as being said by the MP and that they were completely untrue and libellous. The printer was told that the MP was unhappy about this.

65. What the council didn't know was that the MP, Vera Baird, had actually given us the comments for the Informer voluntarily. When asked about it the councils now ex CEO denied this. But the printers wrote and signed a sworn statement as to what happened.

66. Included in the Informer was a section on the Private Road Adoption scheme. This had been pushed for all its worth by the LibDem/Tory Coalition/East Cleveland Coalition. One of the people who pushed this scheme was Councillor Steve Kay. Despite having five of these small dirt tracks being adopted all around his house in the tiny village of Moorsholm, he did not declare his interests. When we brought this to light in the informer and showed pictures to prove it, he then started to declare his interests in all aspects relating to the private road adoption scheme.

67. Though this was brought to the attention of the council, no action was taken.

68. The Standards board accepted the councils legal officers explanation that he didn't know that he had to declare his interests.

69. Steve Kay has been a councillor for approximately 30 years and one time mayor of the borough.

70. The private road adoption scheme was going to cost the council approximately £1, 300,000 but with the interest added onto that, the figure would rise to between 4 and 6 million. However, at the time of the 2007 Local Elections, Councilor Mary Lanigan was approached by a sub contractor who had been employed by McAlpines to do the work on the private roads and told her that he had been paid nowhere near what the council had paid McAlpines to do the work. One of the privately adopted roads even belonged to Lord Zetland! Mary Lanigan included this in her election literature that year.

71. She acquired receipts and invoices from the subcontractor to show exactly what he had claimed for. After the elections in 2007, Mary Lanigan was made member for Highways etc. She told me that she wanted this so that she could look deeper into what had gone on. Shortly after her appointment a story appeared in the Gazette about this issue and there were calls for an investigation.

72. No such investigation has ever taken place. Despite it appearing in council minutes that it was going to be forwarded onto the Audit Commission the District Auditor, when we had our meeting with her last year, said that she didn't know anything about it?

73. The ex CEO Colin Moore, told Councilor Mike Findley when he first became a councillor in 2003, that there were two schemes that had to be gotten through in the LibDem/Tory/Independent term of office and they were the private road adoption scheme and the Coatham Enclosure scheme.

74. Both Steve Kay and Vera Moody both recently refused to make statements about the private road adoption scheme.

75. The private road adoption scheme has now been abandoned.

76. The council have always claimed that the 'silent majority' were in favour of their scheme but have never provided proof of this. On the other hand we have submitted a 10,000 signature petition against the scheme, there were over 2000 objections to the scheme, we have had four marches in the town with 2-300 people in attendance each time, we have had countless meetings where between 200 and more recently 500 people have been in attendance, we had over two thousand people through the doors of our exhibition, between 800 and 1000 people have come to see our film and when I stood in the General election in 2005 on this single issue I came fourth with 2379 votes. We fielded candidates in the local election where none were returned but in each case our candidiates polled between two and three hundred votes. I myself stood against the Lib Dem leader Chris Abbott in his safe seat and reduced his majority from approximately 1100 to approximately 600. Despite the massive support for what we are doing, the council has taken no heed at all.

77. In 2006, it emerged from a source within the council, that the council were going to part company with Liberata. We made this public and can you believe that I actually had two calls from Colin Moore himself telling me that as usual, I had gotten my facts wrong and Liberata were not ending their contract with the council.

78. Either in late 2006 or in 2007, the council parted company with Liberata.

79. In March 2007 at Teesside magistrates Court, I faced legal heavy weight George Lawrence. The council had applied to stop up certain footpaths that crossed over Coatham Common and which have been there, in some cases, for 150 years or so. The council had, in the first instance, registered some of the paths we had applied to have registered, as being actual paths. We later discovered that this was just a way to get round having a public inquiry about the matter which would have probably taken place if they had refused to register them. So they registered them and then applied to stop them up.

80. When we were alerted as to what they had tried to do, we submitted approximately 30 letters of objection. At six o'clock on a Friday night, just two days before the hearing, one of our group was hand delivered a bundle of papers from the councils legal dept. In the bundle was a letter that continually made references to being members of the public being responsible for costs. It was a clear threatening tactic. However, two of our group went to court on the day and forced a hearing into the whole issue.

81. We later found out that the council, who had brought George Lawrence QC up from London with his legal team, paid Mr Lawrence TWELVE AND A HALF THOUSAND POUNDS of public money, for being in court for twenty five minutes. This should of course been something that the councils own solicitor should have dealt with.

82. At the main hearing in March 2007 though, because the council had made so many references to being liable for costs and because George Lawrence and his legal team were being brought up for two whole days and just twenty five minutes, the amount of objections had dropped to just a hand full and I was the only person who was prepared to go to court to get the truth.

83. Unaware that I was able to cross examine the council witnesses, I sat there oblivious listening to Officer Alan Logan tell the judge that there was going to be this in the scheme and that in the scheme. This went directly against things that were in council documents that I had in my possesion. I then suddenly realised that I could cross examine. Under cross examination, Mr Logan admitted to the judge that the Coatham scheme would not include the visitor centre ( the most important element ) that the beach at Coatham would be closed on a seasonal and spacial basis, that there would be no extreme sports centre. He constantly said that he did not know the answers to my questions but he was a senior officer in regeneration?

84. Whe I pointed out to him that the evidence that he had offered to the judge was totally different to what he had told me under cross examination, he simply said that he had been asked to read out the statement he had made to the judge. What a weak excuse for lying to a judge.

85. Despite admitting in March in a British court that there was going to be no visitor centre, at the subsequent High Court Judicial Review later that year, Mr Logans statement once again maintained that there was?

86. The council applied for costs when they won, but the judge turned them down saying that members of the public should not be put off stating their case by the threat of costs.

87. The Evening Gazette, who had had a reporter in attendance throughout the hearing, didn't print any of the damning facts that had been aired in court and still maintained in their subsequent report that the scheme would include a visitor centre.

88. On March 27 2008, Cllrs George Dunning and Mark Hannon put out a press release that made out that the village green process had finished and that we had been refused the right to take the issue of the village green up to Judicial Review. To a small degree that was correct, but what Dunning and Hannon hadn't told people was that the day before the press release went out, the council had started proceedings to take the issue of the village green to Judicial Review themselves.

89. The judge had refused to let us apply to go to Judicial Review, but part of the process is that if the judge refuses, the applicant has the right to state their case orally. We had, through our legal team, told the council that this was our intention. So knowing that they would most probably be beaten at such an oral hearing, the council applied for what they called an "expedited, rolled up hearing" ( speedy judicial review ) in regard to the village green issue. They did this once again, to save time. If they hadn't they would have had to have had the initial oral hearing, then the judge would have had to make his decision and then he would have come back and said yes and then a date would have had to be set for the judicial review, so the council completelt subvented that whole process and applied for a speedy judicial review the day before Dunnings and Hannons press release was issued.

90. The thing is that they both knew, because the councils legal officer had informed George Dunning weeks before, that going for a speedy JR was the councils intention yet they still put out a press release that totally misled the public into thinking that the process was over.

91. When it all came out in the wash through correspondences between myself and the council, they were actually trying to get round this abuse and the lying, misleading press release being put out by saying that it was actually Persimmon who took the issue to this speedy Judicial Review and not the council. But the fact was that Persimmon didn't do that until April 2008. It had been the council who had notified opposing solicitors in March 2008 and so it had been the councils intention up till then, to take this issue to JR.

92. The Ombudsman, despite being given all of the facts including a copy of an email from the applicants solicitors to the council asking why they had put out the press release when it was clearly misleading, did nothing. Infact, they haven't even answered my email of complaint.

93. The Village Green Issue is now being taken all the way to the House of Lords/Supreme Court. It's far from over.

94. In 2006 The ex CEO of Redcar and Cleveland councils past as CEO of Tamworth Council, was featured on Redcar.Net. The original posting that had been made stated certain things that I made an innocuous comment on as I had spoken to people at Tamworth council myself. Shortly after this, I, along with the administrator of the site, received letters from Carter Ruck solicitors in London on behalf of the now ex-CEO telling me to retract the statements and apologise to Mr Moore. I removed my posting which hadn't said anything in regard to Mr Moores time at Tamworth, but I did not apologise. I have heard no more from Carter Ruck. A sledgehammer to crack a walnut?

95. After SOLACE were informed that Mr Colin Moore had been found in Tribunals to have been deliberately disingenuous, sharp practising to the point of abusing certain council processes, changing his evidence overnight, bullying, intimidation and concealment whilst CEO here and that he left Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council on grounds of ill health with a two year enhanced pay deal worth over £369,000 only to turn up working for Cumbria Council two or three months later SOLACE, contacted SOLACE enterprises, of whom Mr Moore is an associate and they came back and said that Mr Moore had had excellent references from Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and that his behaviour in the tribunals did not affect his work at Cumbria council. They were satisfied that he met all of their criteria.

96. After John Denham MP issued a statement to the effect that he would not tolerate CEO's behaving basically in the manner that Mr Moore had here, I wrote back to them and copied Mr Denham into the email.

97. Neither have replied.

98. It is widely accepted that Mr Moore used to work at one time for the Labour Party.

99. Only a few weeks ago, I received an indication from an unknown source that SOLACE enterprises may fund the Labour Party.

100. The new CEO of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, Mrs Amanda Skelton, was brought in from South Tyneside council, another traditional Labour Authority. She left there and came here under a cloud, after being found to have witheld information from an investigation into the Trow Quarry scandal in South Tyneside.

101. Mr Colin Moore the ex-CEO here, took part in her selection process.

102. It came to light last year, that an employee of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council had had her offer of employment retracted by the council because she had spoken the truth about the unlawful way the council had behaved in an unissued, draft press release, from the community group that she is a part of. The draft press release had been leaked to the council. Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council told her to choose her friends more wisely in future and retracted her offer of employment.

103. Dinner ladies in the borough were encouraged by their own union man to take pay deals well below what they were entitled to, on behalf of the officers of the council. The dinner ladies were eventually given the full amount after taking it to tribunal. The Union man, even though he had been given a managerial position, was 'sacked' as union man and thrown out of the union for bringing it into disrepute.

104. Last year the Council, Audit Commission, GONE, Persimmon Homes and a couple of other bodies were asked under the FOI act, if Mrs Veronica Moore had worked for them in any capacity. Three of them came back and said no. Two of them however replied refusing to answer, stating that they would not give the answer because of some data protection clause. This seemed odd as the other three hadn't used this excuse and just told me that Mrs Moore hadn't worked for them.

105. The two that refused to answer were the Audit Commission who Mrs Moore had already stated she had worked for on the PCT website, and Persimmon Homes PLC.

106. Persimmon Homes PLC's founder Mr Duncan Davidson, was found recently to have made financial donations of tens of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party.

107. Mr Robert Goodwill MP, was friends with the founder of Persimmon Homes PLC, Mr Duncan Davidson and is friends with his children.

108. Mr Robert Goodwill has denied any knowledge of Persimmon Homes PLC funding the Conservative Party.

109. Mr Duncan Davidson is the Grandson of the Duke of Norfolk and was page boy at the Queens Coronation in 1953.

110. This week it emerged in Southwark Crown Court that Persimmon Homes PLC had been 'instrumental' in a multi million pound mortgage fraud in Thamesmead in London.

111. The police had not investigated them even though they are implicated due to a 'lack of resources'?

112. This year after Mr Robert Goodwill MP retracted his support for our campaign, in the press release that he jointly put out with the council and Vera Baird MP, the council stated that they had had claims of corruption investigated by the Police, the Audit Commission and the MP among others.

113. We discovered under the FOI act that this is untrue and no such investigations have ever taken place.

114. We have two letters from the Serious Fraud Office which state that the things that we have brought to their attention and I quote "pertain to corruption" and that there are things here that "should be investigated by the police possibly assisted by the CPS". Both Ashok Kumar MP and Mike Newbury of the Audit commission asked, when we had meetings with them in 2005 and 2008 respectively, if we thought there was corruption within Redcar and Cleveland Borough council. Why would they ask this based on the information that we had provided them with?

115. Vera Baird MP, as Solicitor General of the country, is in charge of the Serious Fraud Office.

116. No investigations, by the standards board, ombudsman, Audit Commission, police, Serious Fraud Office, HSE, or both of the areas MP's into Coatham and the behaviour of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council have ever taken place.

Why is Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council involved with such a developer?

2009-09-24T05:31:00.000-07:00

Today, I was given access to the full story about the headline I posted involving Persimmon and the mortgage fraud case currently taking place in Southwark Crown Court in London. http://www.courtnewsuk.co.uk/newsgallery/?page=8 I have copied and pasted the story below. Read it and be amazed and ask yourself the question why is Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council involved to such a large extent with Persimmon homes PLC?

For me, suddenly a lot of the unanswered questions that I posed a couple of days ago, make a lot more sense. Here is the article in full...

Full Report –
September 18, 2009

THAMESMEAD, SE LONDON; GRAVESEND, KENT; ILFORD, SOUTH OCKENDON, ESSEX; FOREST GATE, WALTHAMSTOW, E LONDON.

One of Britain's biggest home builders was 'instrumental' in a multi million pound mortgage fraud, a court heard.A gang of conmen made profits of £3.5m when they bought a brand new block of flats from Persimmon Homes and sold on the properties for huge mark-ups, it is claimed.

Persimmon Homes was involved in inflating the prices but police do not have the resources to investigate the company, Southwark Crown Court heard.
Prosecutors say the fraudsters recruited dozens of dupes to apply for fraudulent mortgages, promising them they could move into the luxury apartments for nothing.

Gang members even waited at a supermarket checkout to entice potential buyers into the scam as they paid for their groceries.

The fraudsters then used a network of crooked mortgage brokers and accountants to create fake financial histories for the applicants, jurors heard.
In total, they bought and 'sold' a total of 84 flats in the Hill House block in Thamesmead, se London, making profits of £3.5m.

Mastermind Alim Barrie then fled abroad with much of the cash, and has not been seen since.His cousins Mohammed, 39, and Muctaru Barrie, 29, are in the dock at Southwark Crown Court alongside mortgage valuers Brad Fisher, 44, George Sourou, 43, and Sofiya Ahmed, 28, accountant Dean Dairo, 48, and 45-year-old solicitor Okwuchukwu Izuchukwu.

Another Barrie brother, Umaru, also fled the country while on bail.
Prosecutor Richard Mandel said: 'In order to sell 84 flats, a major recruiting drive for buyers was needed. It had to be done outside the ordinary legitimate market. 'Parties were fertile ground. In one instance, the buyer was recruited in a supermarket queue, waiting to pay for his groceries at the till.
'The recruiters were Alim himself and also, directly or indirectly, Umaru and Mohammed Barrie, who must have been well aware of the fraudulent nature of the scheme.

'The recruitment drive by and through the three men was fabulously successful: Atrex sold all 84 flats in the space of five months between May and October 2006.'And no wonder. To become the owner of a brand-new flat at no cost: who can resist the call of such magic?'Once the buyers were recruited, new work histories were created for them to enable them to get mortgages.

Accountant Stuart Joseph, 43, has admitted inventing financial references for fraudulent mortgage applicants, the court heard.Mr Mandel told the court that staff at Persimmon helped to create creating inflated valuations for the flats so that mortgage lenders would part with more cash.

Although the flats were being sold by Barry's firm Atrex - a shell company with no assets and no bank accounts, surveyors were given the impression that they were being sold directly to individual buyers by Persimmon.

Mr Mandel said: 'Valuers would have no reason to doubt the false information they were given. After all, Hill House was visibly a new block, and Persimmon did have a sales organisation that sold flats individually to members of the public.'With the false valuation in place, the fraudulent package to the lender would be complete. A mortgage in the sum requested would not be long in coming.'

But the barrister said it had not been possible to investigate Persimmon staff members' possible connection with the fraud because of a lack of police resources.He said: 'It follows that Persimmon staff were instrumental in the generation of false valuations by surveyors, and therefore instrumental in the operation of the fraud.

'Were Persimmon staff complicit?

'If they were not complicit, but unknowingly providing false information on instructions, from whom did those instructions come?
'Given the size of Persimmon, the answers to these questions, and others about the possible involvement of Persimmon employees in the fraud, would require a huge police investigation. For reasons already touched on, there has been no such investigation.'The court heard Atrex bought the fats from Persimmon for £15.25m and sold them for £18.75m - a profit of £3.5m.

Persimmon makes over 10,000 homes a year in the UK.

Mohammed Barrie, of (78) Pinewood Ave, Dartford, Kent; Izuchukwu, of (139) Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, East London; Ahmed, of (153) Howard Road, Walthamstow, East London; Dairo, of (20) Eastern Ave, South Ockendon, Essex; Fisher, of (33) Tiptree Crescent, Ilford, Essex; and Sourou, of (21) The Crescent, Ilford, Essex deny conspiracy to defraud mortgage lenders between October 1, 2005 and November 1, 2006.
Muctaru Barrie, also of (78) Pinewood Place, Mohammed Barrie and Izuchukwu deny conspiracy to launder criminal property.
Joseph, of (4) Furham Field, Pinner, Middlesex, has admitted seven specimen charges of false accounting.

The trial continues.

ENDS

In court on the 24th at Sothwark Crown Court...COURT THREE: At 10am: Ongoing trial of Brad Fisher and four others for conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and false accounting. £20m mortgage fraud. Persimmon Homes director Jason Stokes giving evidence.

How very, very interesting...

2009-09-23T05:49:00.000-07:00

Have a look at this link to the BBC...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8270920.stm

My word, Vera Bairds aide is stepping down over the issue of the Attorney General breaking the law in employing an illegal immigrant and being allowed to remain in her position. It begs you to ask the question if Vera will show the same amount of decency and do the same?

That having been said after trying to claim for Christmas decorations and trees and 49p scourers as essentials for her job as Solicitor General along with new kitchens and a whole host of other luxuries and after her less than decent or credible, two faced behaviour over the issue of the Coatham Enclosure where she described it in one breath as being a disaster and as not being able to deliver any of the leisure facilities that it was promising, least of all a £14,000,000 Visitor Centre that was going to make the scheme a visitor destination of regional importance and then in the next breath ( after Labour had regained control of the council ) she described it as exciting and all of the other things that she had dismissed it for not being, it is clear that this woman is not decent or honest at all.

I hope for the sake of this borough, this woman is sacked along with her buddy, the Attorney General and that as a result, the spotlight is shone on her atrocious record for acting decently. Ultimately I hope that the spotlight is focussed on her successful attempt to threaten and stop Robert Goodwill MP from supporting our campaign and the film he actually showed in Parliament after he had already intervened in her constituency, and after he was prepared to call for an independent investigation into the issue of Coatham and the Local Authority in her constituency that she has tried, no matter what they have done, so hard to protect.

The trial begins and it doesn't look too good for Persimmon...

2009-09-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to a story that I have been following for some months now

http://www.courtnewsuk.co.uk/newsgallery/?page=8

It involves a group of people who bought apartments from Persimmon homes in Thamesmead for a knock down price only to then sell them at an inflated price. As the headline from this article shows, it looks as though Persimmon may have been 'instrumental' in this massive mortgage fraud? This case went to court on Thursday afternoon I believe, so lets see how things develop.

But it makes you ask a few questions doesn't it? If Persimmon are as instrumental in this mortgage fraud as is made out in this headline, then is this the only time that they have done something like this ? Afterall, as I posted on this blog a while ago, it looks like they have been involved in something very similar in other parts of the country, but more than this, why is our council so keen to jump into bed with and bend over backwards for, a developer who are featuring in such sordid court cases?

Even worse, could what be coming to light in this case shine any light on why Redcar council want to sell 35 acres of prime coastland in Coatham with planning permission to build 359 homes on it for just £5, 600,000 to Persimmon, when Middlesbrough council wanted to sell approximately just seven acres of land to Yuill to build just 70 odd houses on it for £8,500,000? How can seven or so acres of land in Middlesbrough be worth three million pounds more than an area of coastline in Coatham that is five times its size and which has actual planning permission for five times the number of houses?

Not only that, why is there no 106 agreement in place between the council and Persimmon which ties Persimmon to providing any leisure facilities in a leisure development? Why has the council paid for Persimmons legal and consultancy costs when we had a £12,000,000 hole in our budget and they were the biggest builder in the country? And why is the council now responsible financially for a sea defence in Coatham that is Persimmons' sole responsibility and which only has to be built if the houses are built on that floodplain?

Or even more inexplicable, why were Persimmon Homes and this council using the same solicitors and consultants who were doing surveys and reports about the state of the contaminated land in Coatham and the Gross HOUSING requirements of Coatham a YEAR BEFORE the Coatham LEISURE scheme was even advertised? Why should the countries biggest housing developer be awarded the contract for a Leisure scheme when they aren't responsible financially, for providing any leisure as part of the scheme?

None of it makes sense does it? Any of it...

Supreme Courts, Information Tribunals and now a Public Inquiry...

2009-09-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

Today I, along with hundreds of other people presumably, received a letter from the Secretary of State for Transport. Because of the 'information' that he had had put before him regarding Persimmons' application to stop up Majuba Road, he has decided to call for a public inquiry into the whole matter.

This, along with the Petition of the House of Lords/Supreme Court and the Information Tribunal regarding the councils financial commitment to providing the sea defence in Coatham when it is supposed to be the sole responsibility of Persimmon, is a yet another massive set back for the Council, Persimmon and their disastrous ( To quote Vera Baird ) scheme.

More than this, all of these actions will put the real and true facts about this development into the public domain and that is something that neither the council or their preferred developer have ever really wanted.

When will these arrogant people realise that the people of this area will not just lie down, roll over and go away until the full truth is known.

Someone's acted already!!!

2009-08-28T02:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I received an email from a lady who had contacted John Denham MP regarding the shameful issue of ex CEO Colin Moore being allowed to leave Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, by the Labour led council, on the grounds of ill health with a £369,000 two year enhanced pay deal for him only to turn up working for Cumbria council a short time later. This was the response that she received...

"Thank you for your email, if you are contacting Mr Denham as Secretary of State please contact the department direct as this is the constituency email address. 0207 944 4400 or contactus@communities.gov.uk. Alternatively you may wish to ask your MP to forward your concerns to the minister".

Can I suggest that as many of you as possible contact this department and tell them about this shameful situation. What I find amusing is the fact that the reply offers the alternative of contacting your own MP in order for them to pass "your concerns onto the minister". It makes you wonder why Vera Baird MP has never even mentioned it in two years doesn't it let alone raised concerns with the minister?

Still, when she claimed for a 49p scourer when she is earning approximately £125,000 pa, you really can't expect her to behave properly or display any sort of moral fibre whatsoever can you?

Woman stands on plinth...

2009-08-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

A woman standing on a plinth in London, reciting poems about steel making on Teesside was a noble and honourable thing to do in an attempt to try and focus national attention on the devastating end of steel making on Teesside. It got nearly five whole minutes airtime on BBC1's and ITV's local news.

But what I can't work out is this? When an MP intervening in another MP's constituency is such a massive story, unheard of even as John Denham MP for Southamptons disclaimer proves and far bigger than a story about a woman standing on a plinth in London reciting poems, why did no-one in the local press make an issue of Robert Goodwill MP for Scarborough and Whitby intervening in Vera Bairds constituency of Redcar regarding the Coatham scheme and the council as a whole to the point of showing a film about Coatham in Parliament and calling for an independent investigation and why did neither local TV news station, even run the story?

Hey Mr Dunning, Mr Moore...I wonder what the Government minister would say if he knew what had happened here?

2009-08-26T02:15:00.000-07:00

Please look at this link...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8221512.stm

The Government now looks likely to investigate Council chiefs who leave one council with a massive pay award, to turn up working for another council shortly after. This is uncanny when we remember that good old Mr George Dunning leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, let ex-CEO Colin Moore leave the council, before his time, on a chronic illness ticket and a payoff that cost the tax payer £369,000 only for Mr Moore to turn up working for Cumbria Council shortly after in another senior position?

Mr Moore was listed as being in only a 'temporary position' at Cumbria Council. but it lasted for about 15 months.

Perhaps now, in light of the fact that George Dunning called for Moores investigation twice whilst in opposition because of his despicable behaviour that featured in tribunal after tribunal, questions will be asked as to why not a question was asked of Mr Moore and why he was allowed to leave and burden the tax payer of this borough with such a huge sum, when he started working for another authority practically straight away.

There's an old saying that goes "What goes around comes around" and I'm sure that the Government minister mentioned in the link above will hear about Mr Dunnings and Mr Moores 'little indiscretion' no matter how much the Christmas tree decoration and 49p scourer scrounging MP Vera Baird, tries to put a good word in for them.

Check out the contact deatils in the posting below for the Government minister, John Denham, who condemning senior officers such as Moore, aided and abetted by Local Authorities, in the BBC link. Perhaps some of you would like to write to him or phone him and inform him of what has happened here?

I thought the disclaimer at the bottom of his contact details was particularly interesting? See how he says that he cannot intervene in another MP's constituency? It just doesn't happen and so if it does it would be absolutely massive news.

But it did here in Redcar and Cleveland and the local press barely touched upon it at all?

Contact John Denham Communities minister...

2009-08-26T02:14:00.001-07:00

WRITE to 20-22 Southampton Street, Southampton, SO15 2ED

PHONE 023 8033 9807

FAX 023 8033 9907

EMAIL john@johndenham.org.uk

If your enquiery relates to John's work as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government then please use the contact details below:

WRITE to DGLC, Eland House, Bressenden Place, London, SW1E 5DU

EMAIL john.denham@communities.gsi.gov.uk

Please note there is a strict convention at Westminster that MPs don't seek to intervene in matters relating to other MP's constituents. Therefore, John will only be able to persue matters raised by his own constituents. If you are not sure who your MP os you can find out by telephoning the House of Commons Information Service on 020 7219 4272, or refer to their website.

Running scared?

2009-08-19T10:51:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago now, I sent an email to Hilary Benn MP and minister for DEFRA asking him, in light of the publication of the recent climate change report, what he was going to do to stop the Coatham Enclosure housing development because as it stands now, proceeding with it will mean that the council/persimmon will be going directly against Government policy and next year when the bill is passed, they will be breaking the law. His secretary responded after a short while, referring to an email that he sent me in February which has no bearing on the situation as it stands now after the climate change report and policy statement have been published.

So I emailed him back and put it to him again. His secretary emailed me back once again. This time telling me that he had passed my email on, not to Mr Benn, but to what he described as 'policy experts' and that they would get back in touch with me in due course.

Two and a half weeks later and after reading the climate report and policy statement myself, I still had not had a reply from the 'policy experts'. So I emailed Mr Benn again and copied his secretary into it. So imagine my surprise today then, when G.ON.E emailed me answering my most recent email instead of the minister, his secretary or their policy experts and even worse was that all that G.O.N.E did, was to refer me back to the council and advised me to take it up with them. Are G.O.N.E seriously suggesting that all responsibility and decision making regarding building on floodplains now rests with local authorities, especially as the new Government policy is about to become law? If they are that beggars belief!

They all know what the consequences of this report and policy document and the new draft flood bill means for the Coatham scheme. They all know that sea defences will not be publicly funded either to construct them or maintain and they know that building on flood plains such as Coatham will be against the law.

Government Office for The North East are as much a part of the problem here. They know the consequences of the councils and persimmons' actions but not only they are turning a blind eye to them, they are actively encouraging them and trying to keep things in a never ending circle of beaurocracy and red tape.

More and more they not only implicate themselves more and more, they are showing to everyone, just how much they don't want to face up to the harsh reality staring them in the face. Here is the letter I sent to GONE today...

Dear Mrs Lancaster,

Thankyou for your email. I was a bit surprised to say the least at receiving a reply from you, as I had sent my original email to Hilary Benn himself? I must say, it appears that I am being given a bit of a run around?

In the first instance I email Hilary Benn regarding the recent climate change report. Mr Benn's secretary Dan Hamza Goodacre then replied to me drawing my attention to an email that he had sent to me in February this year.

I then reply to him pointing out that since his February email, things had changed massively because of the climate change report and the subsequent Government policy statement which were published in June 09 and which is due to become law next year, which will make building on the floodplain at Coatham against the law.

He then sent me another email telling me that he had forwarded my second email onto some 'policy experts' who would contact me in due course.

After two and a half weeks I still hadn't heard anything from these policy experts. This seemed a bit odd because why would it take so long for policy experts to reply to me regarding a policy document that presumably they had been involved in and which had been published two months previously? They could have been on leave of course, but surely someone could have replied to me on their behalf?

On the 15th of August,not the 5th of August as you stated in your email to me, I then sent another email to Mr Benn and to Mr Goodacre pointing out that after reading both the Climate Change Report and the Government Policy Statement, it is now Government policy, soon to become law, not to build on floodplains and not to use public money constructing and maintaining sea defences unless it is absolutely necessary as the Government are struggling financially to maintain existing sea defences, let alone ones that aren't needed.

Today I get an email from you, not the policy experts, telling me that the issues that I have raised are for the Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council to take into consideration and that any further representations should be made to them?

To be perfectly honest Mrs Lancaster, I find your remarks absolutely incredible. The effects of that Climate Change report and the Governments policy statement are absolutely disastrous for the Coatham scheme, a scheme that Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council have pushed despite huge public opposition, legal challenges in the High Court including a challenge that has been taken to the Supreme court and despite the fact that they have known since 2005 or 2006, that they should be steering developers away from building on that zone three high flood risk area.

I cannot believe that you are telling me, in the email that I have just received, that we should take our case to Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and that they should now sit in judgement of themselves over this issue? Do you honestly believe that they will do the right thing and halt the development because of this new Government policy when they have, aided and abetted by GONE, done everything that they can to force this scheme through at great expense to the tax payer already?

I say aided and abetted by GONE, because that's exactly what has happened. GONE have failed in their duty in regard to the Coatham scheme and have openly pushed and encouraged it for all its worth.

GONE have given the council £1,000,000 to progress the scheme. GONE have ignored a 9600 signature petition against the scheme. GONE have ignored over 2000 objections against the Coatham planning application. GONE failed to call the scheme in for public inquiry despite so many objections, one of which was from a member from the council himself and despite a public inquiry being called for publicly by the MP. GONE even ignored the fact that officers of the council signed the Coatham Development agreement two days before the local elections in 2007 and two weeks before GONE had decided as to whether or not to call the scheme in? This is something that has been described as being "highly irregular" by a High court Judge.

More recently, GONE have involved persimmon homes in the decision making process regarding the stopping up of Majuba Road in Coatham when persimmon homes are the applicant. They have also contravened the Data Protection act by passing on personal letters of objection and personal details to the applicant, in order for persimmon to contact the objectors in a bid to try and get them to withdraw their objections. The bias that GONE has shown towards this scheme, the council and persimmon homes PLC, is absolutely staggering.

I was dumbstruck when I saw in the acknowledgement letter I received on Monday from GONE, that they had asked me to forward any correspondences, between me and persimmon, onto them and that should a satifactory conclusion be met and a "no objection" be registered, would I let GONE know straight away. Perhaps you could tell me why GONE deems me registering a "no objection" as a satifactory outcome and why you think that persimmon homes have the right to try and use any means available to them to get me, or anyone else, to change their mind?

The breakdown in democracy, the collusion, the bias and the pre-determination, the back slapping and the nods and the winks demonstrated and carried out by the very institutions which are supposed to protect the public from the very abuses that you are carrying out regarding this issue, are absolutely disgraceful. The fact that you pass me back to the council, the very people who have done all they can, along with persimmon, to push this scheme and slander anyone who opposes it, in order to try and throw a blanket on the new Governement Policy statement, is a clear indication that you are desperately trying to avoid this situation and all of the real details of it, being brought to the attention of Mr Hilary Benn.

Your attempts to stifle democracy and justice are transparent and they will not succeed.

Peace,

Chris Mcglade.

Absolutely Incredible!!! More than that though, absolutely desperate!

2009-08-17T07:31:00.000-07:00

I sent the email below to GONE today, as a result of getting an absolutely incredible response from them this morning, regarding my objection to persimmons' application to get Majuba Road stopped up. They told me that even though I had specifically requested under the data protection act that they did not pass on my personal details to any third party, they had still passed my letter onto persimmon so that a Mr Sean Taylor from persimmon, could contact me directly?

They then went onto say that they would be grateful if I could forward any correspondence between the applicant ( persimmon ) and myself to them and should matters be concluded satisfactorily, forward confirmation of my "no objection" at my earliest convenience.

When I called them and asked them what they meant by my "no objection" because I had sent a letter of objection? I was told that they had forwarded my full letter of objection to persimmon so that they could contact me and so that I could negotiate with Mr Sean Taylor of persimmon homes in order to resolve any issues that there were between us. Basically, what they were telling me was that people who had objected were having their letters of objection forwarded onto persimmon in order for persimmon to contact those people to try to get them to change their mind about objecting and registering a no objection instead!!!

I have spoken to a few people this afternoon who have told me that they have never, ever come across anything like this before and were absolutely amazed that GONE should be acting on behalf of persimmon homes in this way in order to try and remove objection from Majuba road being stopped up. Persimmon homes plc are not part of the decision making process, so why is the Government Office of the North East, trying to make them so?

Dear Mrs Grimwood,

Further to our telephone conversation today, I am writing to tell you that subject to my solicitor returning from holiday, I will be seeking legal advice with a view to taking legal action against GONE for releasing my personal details to a Mr Sean Taylor from persimmon homes plc.

As far as I am aware, under the data protection act GONE have a right to release basic details of the objections contained within letters of objection that they received to third parties, but they have absolutely no right whatsoever, to divulge who exactly said and objected to this and who exactly said and objected to that, let alone provide the third party with their personal details.

My objection was to the Secretary of state. It is the Secretary of state who will make the decision as to whether or not Majuba Road is closed, not persimmon homes plc. Persimmon homes are not part of the decision making process or at least, they certainly shouldn't be and so I do not wish to enter into any dialogue with persimmon homes plc whatsoever.
Your comment during our telephone conversation, namely that you forwarded my letter onto Mr Taylor so that I could possibly negotiate with him in order to resolve any differences that there may be in order to turn my objection against the closure of Majuba Road into what you describe in your letter as a "non objection", is as disgusting as it is ridiculous.

I find it absolutely disgraceful that you even think for one minute that I, or anyone else who has objected to the closure of this road, can be somehow sweet talked or cajoled or persuaded by Mr Taylor of persimmon homes, into withdrawing their objections and thus registering a non objection instead. What is he going to say to those objecting to get them to withdraw their objections? What tactics will he employ?

An objection is an objection and as you told me today you have had hundreds. When you get so much objection to something, do you normally advocate the applicant contacting the objectors directly to try and get them to drop their objections?
I find it absolutely incredible that you think that people would drop them given the strength of feeling against this development and given that the whole issue of Coatham is now being taken all the way to the House of Lords/Supreme Court by members of the Redcar public.

The sheer contempt that is being shown for the public by GONE, persimmon homes and Redcar and Cleveland Borough council is absolutely disgraceful but there again, it has been displayed before in 2007. On that occasion Redcar and Cleveland Borough council not only signed the Coatham development agreement two days before the local elections but two weeks before GONE had supposedly made the decision as to whether or not the scheme should be called in?

This action alone has already been described by a High Court Judge as "highly irregular". Add this to the fact that GONE gave the council £1,000,000 in order to try and progress the scheme is it any wonder that a 9600 signature petition against the scheme was compeletely ignored by GONE along with over 2000 letters of objection to the planning application. Not only that from all of these instances quoted, it is abundantly clear that there is a biased relationship existing between GONE, Redcar and Ceveland borough council and persimmon homes plc.

Is GONE supposed to completely ignore such large volumes of public objection? In view of your most recent attempts to thwart the democratic processes, I am surprised that you didn't try to get persimmon homes plc to contact all 2000 people who objected to their planning application to try and talk them round to your way of thinking too.

Be under no illusions Mrs Grimwood, I will not tolerate the apparant hijacking of the system by persimmon homes plc aided and abetted by GONE and I will not tolerate my personal details being passed onto a company that I have been in direct opposition to, as well GONE knows, for over five years now.

You will be contacted by my solicitor in due course.

Peace,

Chris Mcglade.

Looking at this posting and the letter that GONE sent me this morning I have just realised something and it is so obvious! GONE'S bias towards persimmon and their plans for Coatham is so obvious!

When they said to me in their letter that "and should matters be concluded satisfactorily could you forward your confirmation of "no objection" at your earliest convenience", they clearly think that the public withdrawing their objections to the closure of Majuba Road is satisfactory, but who for? PERSIMMON HOMES PLC!

Why on earth would the Government Office Of the North East deem the withdrawal of objections to the closure of Majuba Road as being satisfactory if they weren't in bed with persimmon and this council 1000%?

This, coupled with the things that I outlined in my letter to them, is proof that GONE have never had any intention of doing anything other than backing this scheme, no matter how much opposition there is to it, no matter how disastrous it is, no matter how many dark clouds are hanging over it, from the very beginning.

Bearing in mind that it should have been called in because of the amount of public objection to it alone, never mind anything else, I think that it's time to get this whole planning process re-looked at because it doesn't matter what the appeal court ruled last year, the bias and pre-determination is there for all to see.

They're so desperate to start, but times running out.

2009-08-16T06:37:00.000-07:00

In August last year as I was on my way to the Edinburgh Festival, I was a approached by a source who revealed that persimmon homes were in a bad state financially. They also gave me lots of information about various things regarding the Coatham Scheme and wider issues that would eventually have a devastating effect on this disastrous scheme.

One of the things that I was told, was that a new report had been commissioned by the British Government regarding climate change and its effects. I was told by this very senior person, in a very senior position, that the eventuality of this report would basically be that building on flood plains like the zone three, high flood risk area known as Coatham Common, would be against the law because the Government does not have the money to maintain existing sea defences around this country, let alone new ones like the one in Coatham which is only needed if the persimmon houses are built on that flood plain.

I was told that this Government report was due to be released in Spring this year, it was actually made public this June. Here is a link to that report...

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/adapt/pdf/uk-climate-projections.pdf

As my source predicted, the fallout from this report would make the building on floodplains against the law. Here is a link to the Defra site with the link to the Governments policy statement at the top of the page...

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environ/fcd/guidance/pagn/default.htm

It is abundantly clear from these documents, as my source told me, that the Government will not fund or allow the construction or maintainance of sea defences with public money, unless the costs and benefits of them doing so are justified. Managing the risk from flooding from the sea is now paramount and building on areas of high flood risk will only take place if the benefits are sufficient enough to warrant it. Indeed, the Governments own policy document states that and I quote "publicly funded risk management measures should only be undertaken where justified through appraisal".

As the Shoreline Management Plan clearly states that the stance in the area of Coatham where Persimmon Homes PLC want to build 359 homes, is and I quote "hold the line do nothing" because it is an area of high risk flooding and a natural sea defence, then it is clear that any sea defence in Coatham, is only required if houses are built on that high flood risk area. Without the houses there is no need for any sea defence.

Sarah Lavery from the EA and project manager for TE2100 project, publicly said herself that and I quote " Hard defences are becoming increasingly costly to build and maintain. There will always be cases where it simply does not stack up to provide a high level of hard defences for some communities. Anyone who lives on a floodplain is at risk and always has been, we're managing that risk as best we can"

There is currently no-one living on the floodplain at Coatham in Redcar. Is allowing Persimmon Homes PLC to build 359 houses on that floodplain and building a sea defence that is is otherwise un-necessary and which is going to be left to the people of Redcar and Cleveland to fund and maintain in perpetuity, managing the floodrisk there properly?

Quite simply, no it isn't.

This tough stance on building on floodplains, is now Government policy. Next year when the new flood bill is passed, it will become law. The council and persimmon homes, both know this. There is a concensus of opinion, even held by the source that provided me with the information about the climate change report in the first place, that the council and persimmon were hoping to start work on this development before the end of this year or early next year, so that they could get the first phase of housing built, before this bill becomes law.

If that is the case, then there's a responsible local authority and developer for you isn't it? Should local authorities and developers really behave in that manner? Should they ignore such dire warnings? Should they try and circumvent Government policy by starting building on a floodplain, before the law that will in effect stop that building, comes into play?

Of course they shouldn't.

But then again, this council shouldn't have ignored all of the warnings and invested money into Icelandic banks, which resulted in them losing millions of pounds of public money resulting in them being found to have been negligent along with just six other Local Authorities in this Country, by the Audit Commission.

They have tried and they are still trying, but soon they will have run out of time and of course, now that we have the documents that I was told of ten months before they were actually made public, we will do all that we can to let the right people know what this council and their preferred developer have and are, trying to do.

Promise.x

P.S, I've been thinking. Tomorrow so I am told, the boating lake in Coatham will be re-opened. No doubt the Gazette and Radio Cleveland and maybe even BBC news will be there and the likes of George Dunning and Mark Hannon will be there smiling and breaking their necks to tell the press how this is the start of a turn around in Redcars fortunes, how the Coatham scheme will bring jobs to the town and regenerate Redcar?

Strange that?

Because everytime Dunning and Hannon open their mouths about the scheme in the press thats what they always churn out, yet in an email he sent to me Hannon said "The Coatham scheme has never been presented as a panacea for dealing with numerous economic and social issues that Redcar faces"?

You only have to look around to know that if they do say that then it will be as untruthful as it is ridiculous afterall, if houses will regenerate the town, why haven't the hundreds of newly built persimmon homes on Kirkleatham Lane near Hambleton Avenue, turned around Redcar's fortunes?

But what they won't be telling people, probably because the press won't ask such relevant questions, is that the new Government policy featured above, will outlaw the construction of persimmons houses on the Coatham high flood risk area.

They won't dare mention the fact that the Visitor centre, the thing that was going to make this development a visitor attraction of regional importance, is now not happening and that in its place is going to be...wait for it...a youth club and drugs counselling centre.

And they wont be telling the press the reason why the cost of the work on the boating lake has risen from just £60,000 to over a whopping £750,000 or why persimmon homes are no longer contributing to the cost of the work which they were contributing to when the work on the boating lake was only going to be sixty grand either?

Council Officer Ian Wardle and Mark Hannon have both failed to answer this question when I put it to them? I wonder why?

Let them have their day, let them slap each other on the back. The smiles are only a mask, only a facade, for the real desperation that lies beneath and the truths that they daren't tell.
Remember, when a council can lie publicly about being investigated by the police, audit commission, ombudsman etc over alleagations of corruption, in order to paint a false, rosy picture to the public, then they can lie about anything.

Now look at who they're funding...

2009-08-14T05:22:00.000-07:00

Last week I posted on this site that it had come to light that Persimmon Homes had been funding the Conservative Party. This probably goes a long way to explaining the sudden retraction of support for our campaign from Conservative MP Robert Goodwill? But today I received an email that showed that Persimmon have also been funding the Countryside Alliance?

http://www.realca.co.uk/countryside_alliance.htm

Now there's a contradiction for you.

The Countryside Alliance are supposed to be vehemently against the loss of green belt land to housing. So why are they taking money from a company who are actively involved in that process on a massive scale? This probably now explains why the Countryside Alliance, whilst making sympathetic noises to me in 2005, did absolutely nothing to assist us in our campaign to keep greenbelt coastal land in Coatham free from Persimmon homes.

So we have Persimmon funding the Conservative Party and the Countryside Alliance and also with a founder who is part of the Establishment of this Country.

No wonder Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council have displayed such an arrogance and a contempt for massive public opinion against this scheme when their preferred developer is in bed with so many powerful and influential people.

Perhaps a few more things are starting to make sense?

2009-08-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

In 2007 Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council were found after the Judicial Review into the Coatham Planning Process, were found guilty in the High Court. They were found to have acted unlawfully due to bias and pre-determination. The councils new leader George Dunning and the Labour MP Vera Baird both admitted, after this decision was made, that they had known all along that what the old coalition had done in forcing that planning application through, was wrong.

This explains why the council did not then appeal the decision of the High Court but it does not explain why the Labour council challenged the Judicial Review in the first place, if they knew all along that the planning process was unlawful? Why try and defend something that you know to be wrong?

And it does not explain why, when the judgement was made against the council, did Persimmon homes appeal against the judgement? It also does not explain why when there was so much proof of bias pre-determination, did the Court of Appeal overturn the original High Court ruling? Afterall, if signing the development agreement two days before the local elections were held and two weeks before Government Office North East had decided as to whether or not they were going to call the scheme in isn't proof of bias and pre-determination, then what is? I mean, how on earth did the council know that it wouldn't be called in and that it wouldn't go to a public inquiry and possibly stopped, especially as the MP herself had suggested publicly that it should be called in?

Today, I was googling around as I was on Saturday when I found out that Persimmons founder had donated tens of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party. What should I come up with? Only that the same founder of Persimmon Homes was the grandson of the 15th Duke of Norfolk and was page boy to the Queen of England herself at her Majestys Coronation in 1953.

Make of that what you will.

Dear Mr Goodwill...

2009-08-08T06:49:00.001-07:00

Here is a copy of an email that I have just sent to Mr Robert Goodwill, MP for Scarborough and Whitby...

Hello Mr Goodwill,

I trust that this email finds you well. I just thought that I would drop you a line after discovering that who should have donated many thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party? None other than Persimmon homes. Perhaps I may be a tad cynical, but I, along with a lot of other people, are starting to think that the real reason for you distancing yourself from our group and from from the dubious things, to say the least, surrounding the issue of Coatham just the day after the film was shown in Parliament, was that the Party that you belong to is actually being funded by the builder that we are opposing? I thought I'd leave you with quote from the MP who seems to be opposing the Persimmon development where he lives and from your old friend Duncan Davidson, founder of Persimmon Homes...

"I am not saying that there is anything so simple or corrupt as a deal cash for planning permissions in any of these cases. I am merely stating that it is hardly likely that the leading movers and shakers in Britain’s greenfield housing industry would all donate to the Conservative party if they thought that it would block their proposals".

"As Mr. Davidson of Persimmon has been quoted as saying in The Daily Telegraph, the Conservative party represents “the best prospect for our industry and our company”.

When you think that it was a LibDem/Conservative coalition who pushed the scheme through planning despite it being surrounded in controversy and who fought us so viciously for years stooping to smear campaigns and lies, when you look at the quote above, is it really any wonder?

Politics eh? It's a funny old game!

Peace,

Chris Mcglade.

The stench just got a little bit stronger...

2009-08-08T01:17:00.001-07:00

Hey, look at this article that I have just stumbled across from a Hampshire paper.

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/4474177.MP_in_builders____Tory_donations_storm/

Could this possibly be the reason why Conservative MP Robert Goodwill backtracked so quickly? Showing our film in Parliament one minute and about to call for an independent investigation because he knew that something was most definitely wrong with the Coatham Scheme, and then retracting his support the very next day and joining forces with the council against us in order to condemn us and the film that he had just shown.

When Persimmon Homes are making cash donations to the Tory Party as the article shows and when I looked further have been for some time, is Mr Goodwills sudden U turn really such a mystery at all?

More than that, is it any wonder that this botched and tainted scheme got passed at the planning stage when a LibDem/ CONSERVATIVE coalition was in power when there was so much objection to it and is it any wonder that the development agreement was signed two days before the local election that saw the conservatives get ousted from power, took place?

It is now obvious that even though the senior officers who signed that development agreement knew that it was a Labour scheme originally, the Labour group had been making unfavourable noises in public against the scheme in order to turn public unrest about the scheme and objection to it into votes for them in the local elections and so the officers were just making sure that Coatham wasn't going to be scuppered if the Labour Group got back into power.

Could it be that Mr Goodwill, in 'picking up the gauntlet' on our behalf was only paying his constituent, whos also had a business in Redcar for twenty years, lip service in order to score a few political points on a local level in order to dent the chances of Ashok Kumar ( who has a large part of his constituency run by Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council ) more than anything else, at the next General election? This would explain why he was keen to involve the Conservative PPC who will be contesting Ashok Kumars seat, in the film being shown at Parliament.

This would also possibly explain why, when he knew how wrong things were with the Coatham scheme, he didn't invite the national press to the screening of the film in Parliament or involve them in him making the massive step of intervening in another MP's constituency. He didn't want it to go National. He wanted to keep it local so that it could be contained, whilst still appearing to be doing something.

I really wonder, after reading the comments below in the article

"I am not saying that there is anything so simple or corrupt as a deal cash for planning permissions in any of these cases. I am merely stating that it is hardly likely that the leading movers and shakers in Britain’s greenfield housing industry would all donate to the Conservative party if they thought that it would block their proposals. As Mr. Davidson of Persimmon has been quoted as saying in The Daily Telegraph, the Conservative party represents “the best prospect for our industry and our company”.

What was in the letter that Robert Goodwill started to read out from Vera Baird on the day of the screening in Parliament, where she was putting pressure on him to not show it?

Could she have been reminding him that he was acting directly against the company who has been donating thousands of pounds to his party? Perhaps this is why he stopped reading the email that he started to read out and why he refuses to release it without Vera Bairds permission, even though he started reading it to twenty five people without her permission at that screening?

The big questions now are why, when the Labour MP called the scheme botched, sinister and a disaster and the Labour leader of the council called the planning process tainted, did the Labour group and MP back the scheme that the Tories, who were being funded by Persimmon, push through with the help of the LibDems? And why when anyone with any common sense and intelligence can see that there are glaring inconsistencies with the things that they are all saying, that there are massive questions to be answered about this scheme and when everyone knows how wrong it all is, has no-one had the balls to stop it?

It stinks to high heaven and goes much, much further than Coatham or Redcar and Cleveland.

This is politics at a high level, in all of its dirty, seedy, two faced, underhanded 'glory'.

Better late than never eh...

2009-08-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Today, nearly a week after Charles Davis gave his response to the councils press release, the story finally made the Gazette. Seems strange how they print the story just days after my last posting which asked why they hadn't?

Still, better late than never eh?

And so to the House of Lords...much to the councils dismay.

2009-08-02T12:40:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, we received notification from the legal services commission, the people who decide whether or not to grant people legal aid, that they were not prepared to fund our case to register Coatham Common as a village green, in the House of Lords. This was a real disappointment as our chances of success were fifty fifty, it's as finely balanced as that.

The following day, a notice appeared in the back of the Evening Gazette notifying the public that the council/Persimmon were applying to the secretary of state to stop up Majuba Road as part of the development.

The council have no money to provide the key elements of the scheme. Infact an FOI request that asked for a copy of what is known as the "Coatham Risk Register", showed that the lack of funding for this scheme is just one of the major risks to the scheme. Not only that, the Country is in recession and nothing is being built because people aren't buying in the amounts that they were a year or so ago.

Yet here we had this council, just the day after we had found out that the LSC would not fund our case, wanting to stop up one of the major routes into the town? The glee of the council, upon learning of the LSC's decision, was difficult for them to contain. Not only did they place the notice to stop up Majuba Road in the Gazette, according to a council source officers and members alike were strutting round gloating that we had been beaten and that all was finished. On top of that, the Evening Gazette then phoned one of our group asking for a statement in response to the press release which basically told people that the victory was complete and that the scheme that would regenerate Redcar was finally clear to begin.

The member of our group who was contacted by the Gazette was asked what he wanted to say? "I want to say two things" he said, "Firstly, this scheme won't regenerate the town and second, despite what the council have said in their press release, we are going to petition the House of Lords. The stunned journalist asked him what he meant? How could that be? The LSC have turned you down?

What the journalist didn't know was that two nights before, our group had already managed to raise the money that was required to take this case all of the way to the House of Lords ourselves and that just the day before he had phoned for a statement, the council had been notified by solicitors that this case was going to the House of Lords.

The journalist called on Wednesday I believe and still the story has not appeared in the newspaper? This situation is exactly the same as when the story about Robert Goodwill withdrawing his support for our campaign was featured on the councils website, but strangely, it didn't get as much as a mention in the areas biggest local paper?

On that occasion I gave a statement myself anticipating that the council would have 'bust a gut' to issue a press release, but the council didn't even issue a press release to the Gazette or the rest of the local press? I believe that it was never featured in the press because Robert Goodwill had outlined in the middle paragraph of his statement, allegations of corruption etc, that we had not even mentioned ourselves! It would appear that he wanted to back off because the pressure from Vera Baird was too much for him, but he also wanted to keep his back door open so to speak, by stating publicly what he knew incase there was ever a day when this shabby council were investigated.

And here we have the same situation again, a major story making the councils website to a very limited number of people, yet failing to make the local paper and the truth failing to be taken out to the wider public.

Despite their bluster and their vitriol, this council are desperate. They are in serious trouble financially in being able to deliver this scheme. They are trying to push it ahead for all its worth, even to the point of now stopping up a major road into our town, when they have lost the main leisure elememt THE VISITORS CENTRE from the scheme and when they are replacing it with a youth and drugs counselling centre that has no planning permission, has had no public consultation and which isn't nor ever has been. a part of this scheme. They are keeping things out of the press and out of the wider public consciousness and they are clucking amongst the normal council employees trying to convince anyone that will listen, that they are victorious and we are beaten.

How sad are they? Are a local authority supposed to behave in such an infantile manner? Are they there to grind their tax payers down into the ground like some hostile army that have to subdued and vanquished at all costs? In one word, No.

And so what now for them? Left with egg on their faces once more, this bunch of lying, inept, hypocrites are now faced with the prospect of trying to stop up a major road into the town on the premise that this botched, tainted, disastrous scheme ( to quote Vera Baird and George Dunning ) is about to begin, when it isn't because the whole legal process has now been taken to the highest court in the land. It never was anyway because of all the obstacles that they had to overcome and because of the recession.

I urge as many of you as is humanly possible, to write to the address below objecting to Majuba Road being stopped up. The planning permission referred to in R/2006/0743 cearly states that all planning conditions regarding this scheme have to be met, including the construction of a sea defence in Coatham, before the developement can begin and these conditions have not been. But now there is absolutely no need to stop this major road up because the issue of the village green has been taken all the way to the House of Lords and as such, no stopping up of any road to accomodate this development should be allowed because there is a possibility that the development may not go ahead.

Send your letters to

Ray Oldfield,
The Secretary of State,
National Transport Casework Team,
Government Office for The North East,
Citygate,
Gallowgate,
Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 4WH.

Please have them in by approximately the 20th of this month.

This councils arrogance will be their downfall. They have underestimated the public massively. They have, along with our scrounging MP Vera Baird, castigated us in the press for using the democratic process of being able to get legal aid to fund our case, which is our democratic right.

Now they are faced with the people of Redcar funding the case themselves, what are they going to say now?

An appeal for your help...

2009-07-14T04:09:00.000-07:00

DVD APPEAL BY CRAIG HORNBY/ PANCRACK.TV...

The final cut of the film "Coatham a common concern", has been put together over the last 2 years with Pancrack funds and public donations. The campaign group and myself have worked for free because we believe the publichave A RIGHT TO KNOW THE TRUTH BEING DENIED THEM. This is about democracy in ourborough and stopping the misuse of public funds as much as it is about preservingpublic land; getting a real leisure scheme and a better deal for Redcar.

PLEASE HELP US SPREAD THE WORD ! We need £3,000 urgently so that we can get 10,000 dvds made to distribute across the borough. This will help us massively to inform the public and wider world of the true facts. If you can help us, please go to my website andmake a donation online via paypal or card (secure server). It's very simple to follow:http://www.pancrack.tv/news.html

EVERYONE WHO DONATES £10 OR MORE WILL GET A DVD SENT TO THEM! If we don't raise enough for 10,000 then we will do a smaller run, either way every penny will get spent on promoting the film. Many Thanks to all who have donated so far ! Craig Hornby - craig@pancrack.tv And please watch the Trailer Below:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWrtaGI1x6c Thank you.

A post script from me...Despite the council and our scrounging MP Vera Baird claiming that this film is dispicable, full of lies and libellous, no legal action has been taken against the people who made it, or to stop it being shown and it has now been seen by close to a thousand people in venues all over the borough?

When I see what is on offer, then I am glad that we fought this disaster.

2009-07-03T10:39:00.001-07:00

Looking at the posting below, I am so glad that we have fought this most rotten of developments. All along we said that this scheme was never going to deliver any of the things that the council were misleading people into thinking that they were going to get. All along we said that the only way to have a baths was to borrow the money. All along we said that the main motivation of this scheme was the housing not the leisure element because there never has been any real hope of any leisure element.

All of these things. despite our names being dragged through the mud for having the courage to dare to point out the truth to people, are now happening. All of the leisure facilities that this council touted in order to sell the housing elemant to the public, are no longer part of the scheme. The only leisure element of the scheme is the pool and leisure centre which as we said, is going to be paid for with public money not through outside funding being attracted as a result of the houses being built. And as is now clear for all to see because there is no leisure scheme anymore and because what we are getting the public are paying for, the main motivation for this scheme is, for some reason, 359 Persimmon Homes.

Never have I felt more proud of all of the people and myself, who have fought this disaster being inflicted on our town. Never more have I felt vindicated and justified for dedicating five years of my life to exposing the truth that has always been there to see.

I urge every last person to do all that they can to stop this scheme so that Redcar can get the scheme that it deserves. Not the one that the council and their preferred developer are trying to inflict upon it. It is officially offering even less now then when Vera Baird made her statements on radio calling it a disaster and saying that a baths isn't a big enough pay back for all of the houses being built on our coastline. It isn't just a baths anymore Vera, Its a baths being paid for with borrowed money that the public will have to pay back through increased council tax.

That was something that you said you could never support. SO WHY ARE YOU?

Good Heavens! More lies!

2009-07-03T08:48:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, here is the councils latest statement about Coatham. If you look at the statements they made about Coatham in May this year, just 8 weeks ago, compared with what they are saying now, you will see that yet again they differ.
http://www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk/main.nsf/Web+Full+List/5AFE0AC58A838FD8802575E500393F58?OpenDocument

They are now finally admitting that the, at the last estimate £14,000,000 visitor centre, is now no longer a part of the scheme as it is being replaced with a £4,500,000 youth centre. What they aren't telling people is that this youth centre isn't, nor ever has been, a part of the Coatham scheme. It hasn't been before any planning committee, there has been no public consultation about it and most of all, they aren't telling people that this youth centre according to newspaper reports last year, will also contain a drugs counselling centre.

The Visitor Centre in the Coatham scheme was the most important element of the scheme. It was the main ingredient that was going to make this scheme a visitor attraction of regional importance. How on earth can a youth centre and drugs counselling centre be of regional importance? How is it going to attract visitors to our town? But the reality is that because of our persistance the council have finally, officially, had to admit the truth, the truth that we have been telling for nearly three years, that the Visitor Centre is now gone from the scheme. But this now throws up still more questions.

Firstly Colin Moore and Vera Moody stated way back in 2006, in the press, that funding for all the leisure had been secured. With the visitor centre now no longer officially part of the scheme, we know that this was definitely A LIE.

Secondly Council Officer Alan Logan. despite telling a magistrates court in March 2007 that the Visitor Centre was not going to happen, then told a High Court and a High Court of appeal in his statement later in 2007 and then again in 2008, that the Visitor Centre was going to happen and was part of the scheme? After this latest statement we now know that Alan Logans statement to the High court and court of appeal that the Visitor Centre was going ahead, was definitely A LIE.

Thirdly, Chris Abbott and Glynn Nightingale, at a full council meeting, told everyone there that the Visitor Centre was definitely going ahead. We now know that this was definitely A LIE.

Then in the the councils latest statement they tell us that we will get Improvements to the existing Mungle Junle premises and development of extreme sports.
Just improvements to the Mungle Jungle? This is a new one and a clear indication, along with the development of Extreme Sports, that there is no money for Extreme Sports, there never has been despite what the council have fed us and more than this, there never will be. The word development is used to give the impression that its still going to happen. A bit like when Alan Logan told the High Court and Court of Appeal that the visitor centre was still going to happen.
How can this eyesore be improved by doing anything other than flattening it? Infact, I would like to know if public money is being used to carry out these "improvements" on a privately owned business? Once again though, "improvements" to this eyesore with a white asbestos roof, is a far cry from an Extreme sports centre that they are still desperately trying to make people believe will happen, but you only have to look at the facts to know that it never will.

The MP stated that an Extreme Sports centre will never happen even if they gave the owners of the Mungle Jungle a thousand and twenty five year lease, not just a 125 year lease that they have already. This white elephant attracted no interest an no funding publicly or privately, when things were booming in this country and even with planning permission, so how on earth are they going to attract funding now that the country is in recession? Exactly! They aren't.

Then it says " D2 Leisure - to be determined ". To be determined? The D2 leisure site was supposed to be the bingo hall, the bingo hall that they claimed they had funding for. Now they are telling us that they still haven't determined what this is going to be? They had better get a move on if they hope to start work in a few months don't you think?

Even more laughable is they are still trying to make the public believe that the Health Village ( aka doctors surgery to you and me ) is still going to happen. But if you look at the letter from the PCT themselves on this site, posted on the 18th May I think, you will see that the PCT themselves have stated that they are looking for new sites for this doctors surgey and so as such, it is highly unlikely that the doctors surgery will be part of the scheme either. Not that anyone would regard a doctors surgery as a tourist attraction or a visitor destination anyway.

These people are absolutely on the ropes with this whole farcical situation. They have told so many lies to cover lies that they have already told, that their lies and their contradictions would be easy for a four year old to spot and pull apart, let alone educated adults who have been following the lack of progress of this scheme from the start. There is no leisure scheme anymore there never has been. Vera Baird has already said this on Radio. All of the things that our group have been saying for five years, all of the things that we have been smeared for saying, have all come to pass. It is just a housing estate built on our coastline with a baths paid for with public money.
The Single Screen Cinema, the Bowling Alley, the bingo hall, the Extreme Sports Centre, the open air performance area, the parade of shops, the iconic tower and most of all, the visitor centre were never going to happen and have all gone.

This council, backed up by Vera Baird, have lied outrageously. They are continuing to lie outrageously. They are lying every time they open their mouths about this subject or anything connected to it. You only have to look at the last posting that I made on this site, where we exposed their public statement about the police etc investigating corruption within the council to be an absolute lie, to know this to be the case.

You must all ask yourselves this. If everything about this scheme was above board, If this scheme was so great, so fantastic for this town, so regenerative, then it would stand on its own. The council wouldn't have to lie about it so blatantly.

So why are they?

Liars, all of them.

2009-06-24T09:52:00.001-07:00

Early last month, the council, Vera Baird MP and Robert Goodwill MP for Scarborough and Whitby, issued a joint press statement denouncing the film "Coatham a common concern". Despite their protestations that it was libellous and untrue, neither the council or Vera Baird have started any legal proceedings or taken any legal action to get the film stopped from being shown, or against the individuals who are directly involved with it. Strange for something that is so libellous, especially as over 800 people have now seen it in screenings across the borough?

Within that joint statement was this paragraph.

"A minority of protestors have alleged there is corruption within the Council in relation to this scheme and that it is being driven forward against residents’ wishes. These allegations have been investigated by the Police, Courts, Audit Commission, the local Member of Parliament and the Ombudsman – all of which has confirmed that the Council has done nothing wrong".

Shortly after this was put onto the councils website, but strangely not issued in a press release? I sent FOI requests to the Police, the Audit Commission, the Ombudsman and the Council asking for them to provide me with confirmations of these investigations, the investigations reports, the reports findings, who carried these investigations out and when?

You may be shocked to learn, especially when this council made this statement publicly in conjunction with two MP's, that it is an absolute tissue of lies.

Firstly here is the response from the police...

Dear Mr McGlade,Enquiry Ref : 2009/1696I
write in connection with your request for information dated 21 May 2009 concerning Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council.

Re your below request:"I am sending this email now to clarify my FOI request. Under the Freedom Of Information Act I would like to know if The Cleveland Police Force has ever carried out an investigation into Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council over allegations of corruption? If a corruption investigation into Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council has ever taken place, then I would like you to provide me with the confirmation of this investigation, the report that was made regarding this investigation, the reports findings, the date that the investigation was started and completed and the identities of the people who carried out the investigation.I hope that this clarifies totally my FOI request and the information that I am requesting.

"Having made enquiries into your request I can confirm on behalf of Cleveland Police that no information is held.If you are not satisfied with this response or any actions taken in dealing with your request you have the right to request that we review your case under our review procedure. If you decide to request that such a review is undertaken and following this process you are still dissatisfied you then have the right to direct your complaint to the Information Commissioner for consideration.If I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Pc 121 James Conlin
Freedom Of Information
Wetherby House.

And here is the response from the Audit Commission...

Your request for information

I can confirm that the Audit Commission has not carried out an investigation into Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council over allegations of corruption and there are therefore no details to disclose to you of any such investigation by the Audit Commission.
The Audit Commission has not withheld any information in relation to this request under the exemptions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Separate from the Audit Commission, there are occasions when investigations are carried out by District Auditors. But only in respect of matters that come within the statutory functions of the District Auditor, as explained in the information provided to you by our Complaints Unit. The need for any such investigation is a matter for the District Auditor to decide personally and is not
a decision of the Audit Commission.
If the District Auditor decides that there is a need for an investigation, the work may eventually lead to a publicly available report by the District Auditor. Depending on the subject matter, findings and recommendations may be in the Annual Audit and Inspection Letter for the audited body or in statutory recommendations or a public interest report issued by the District Auditor
under the provisions of the ACA.

Advice and assistance

Under Section 16 of the FoIA the Audit Commission has a duty to provide advice and assistance, so far as it would be reasonable to expect a public authority to do so. We did this in our previous correspondence with you and I trust that the further explanations in my letter are helpful to you.

And finally here is the response from the council...

FOI 09 175

Further to my acknowledgement of your Freedom of Information request, I can confirm that the Council does not hold the information you requested. You asked : (These allegations have been investigated by the Police, Courts, Audit Commission, the local Member of Parliament and the Ombudsman – all of which has confirmed that the Council has done nothing wrong.) I would like you to provide me with the investigation reports from all of the aforementioned bodies or individuals investigations, along with all of the investigation confirmations. I would also like to know who specifically carried out the investigations and when they were carried out. I would also like to know when these investigations were completed and I would like to know who asked them to be carried out by the above bodies or individuals.

Our Response: The Council does not have the reports you request and is therefore unable to supply them to you or provide specific details about them. If you are not satisfied with how your request has been dealt with then you are free to make a complaint either to the Council or to the Information Commissioner. You will find details of the complaints procedure on the Council's Website at http://www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk/YrCounc1.nsf/Web+Full+List/EA933A45C0016DCB80256BA00049DF2A?OpenDocument (alternatively by using the A-Z Index from the home page). The Information Commissioner is an independent person who has responsibility for overseeing the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000. More details can be obtained from the Information Commissioner’s website at http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/ .

regards Ken Hamer Constitution Officer 01642 444626

The only body who wouldn't answer strangely enough, was the Ombudsman? She tried hiding behind some beaurocratic redtape and some clause as an excuse to not provide the information that everyone else, even the council, did not attempt to hide behind. So much for the Ombudsman trying to defend the public from such abuses and such blatant lies.

But more than this, when not only a council, but TWO MP's issue a joint statement that contains things that are completely untrue and they know that they are, then what does that really say?

When a local authority, backed up by its MP and the MP from a neighbouring constituency put out a blatantly untrue statement that tries to convince the public that these public bodies have investigated corruption in the council and found that all is well, when no investigations have even taken place, then that shows the desperation that these people are feeling. They are as guilty as sin and they know they are. They have been caught bang to rights on so many counts and are desperately trying to make everyone believe that they are whiter than white when clearly they are not.

Lets hope that someone has the courage to speak out about this and call for the investigation that Robert Goodwill was going to call for before he was warned off by Vera Baird. What a silly man Mr Goodwill is, rather than stand up for what he knows is the truth, he has aligned himself with those who are telling so many lies and who are guilty of so many things and has been so easily exposed.

The guilty try to cover their tracks...

2009-06-18T02:49:00.000-07:00

Today the list of MP's expenses,Vera Bairds included, were made public. Despite the soundbites from Parliament stating loudly and clearly that there would be openness and transparency, huge swathes of these expense forms etc, following the furore that has erupted in the press about this subject, had been blacked out and kept from the public. Had it not been for the Daily Telegraph being leaked a copy of the uncensored copies of expenses, no-one would have known that these scrounging, fiddling, greedy hypocrites had claimed for the things that they had. They KNEW that they were wrong and they tried to cover their tracks and these censored versions of their expenses, damn them still further because they have tried to hide their claims.

This is an absolute disgrace and a clear indication that these dishonest people, who in my opinion are akin to the 'dole scroungers' and the 'benefit fraudsters', living on the breadline and who are castigated by these same MP's, are concealing things that they do not want anyone to know. If one of these benefit fraudsters had been caught bang to rights claiming and trying to claim for money that they were not entitled to, would they be allowed to withold information and details about the scale and the size of their fraud? Would they be able to hide behind the fact that what they were doing was not against the law, that they were acting within the rules if they had created the rules in the first place? Would they escape investigation and conviction?

The answer to those questions is no they wouldn't. So why are these parliamentary parasites, these legal 'dole scroungers' allowed to get away with it and no more than a slap on the wrist and a "naughty boy/girl you'll have to stand down and don't get caught again!"

What makes MP's far worse than unemployed people or people on low income fraudulently taking public money out of the pot, is that these elected, upright 'pillars of society' are already being paid thousands, hundreds of thousands of pounds even, of public money as a salary. In the case of our scrounging MP Vera Baird, she is paid over £125,000 per year.

So looking at the expense claims that are not blacked out, why has she put claims in for pan scourers that cost 49p, masking tape and paint brushes just over £3.00, why is she getting her council tax and utility bills paid for in a house in Redcar that she barely uses? Why does she think that she is entitled to have the public in her constituency pay for a Chamonix door at a cost of £1199.00? Or a set of oak tables and chairs and a bench at £4570? Or a conservatory at over SIX AND A HALF THOUSAND POUNDS! And to cap it all, why does she think that the tax payers of Redcar and Cleveland should pay for groceries for her at a cost of £210.00? As a vegetarian, that's an awful lot of carrots and cabbages. Why doesn't this absolute scrounger pay for her own groceries from the vast wage that she gets paid. I was always brought up to believe that thats how things worked. You went to work, got paid a wage and paid for the things that you need for your everyday living, from those wages.

With this out and out scrounger, she has the tenet of well what I earn is mine and I will get Joe Public to pay all of my living costs.

Why doesn't she simply use some of her massive salary to pay for these things? It almost makes her claim for Christmas trees and decorations seem insignificant. When you also consider that as was exposed in the Telegraph, this woman as a junior barrister tried to claim more than she was entitled to and when you consider her attempts at trying to cover for the most rotten of local authorities in her constituency over the issue of Coatham and other things, is she really the person who should be our MP? Is this the calibre we would expect of the Solicitor General of England?

Its about time she and the rotten council that she tries to protect, were investigated and the guilty sacked and asked to stand down.

Things get worse for Vera Baird and the council.

2009-06-11T03:54:00.000-07:00

Here is a posting that I have just come across on the Gazettes forum...

Oh dear, look at this link to todays independent...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/councils-blamed-over-iceland-savings-1702152.html

Where is Vera Bairds condemnation of the local authority within her constituency? As usual, nowhere to be seen. It seems that she simply refuses to speak out against them despite all of the terrible things that they are doing and getting away with. One can only ask why? I think the long awaited investigation into this council is just around the corner as the National Press look as though they are switching their attention from MP's expenses to their involvement with the underhandedness taking place in local authorities. If our Vera was lying low before this story broke today, she'll be in the process of emigrating to Timbuktu now. Especially with a film about the shady behaviour of the council in her constituency and her involvement with them, is doing a tour of the borough. Let the truth about these people and their behaviour be known and if anyone out there has any contacts within the National press, for heavens sake, BRING THIS COUNCIL AND THIS MP TO THEIR ATTENTION!

Lets all hope that this is the beginning of the National Press shifting their focus to the terrible abuses taking place in local government.

My word, Vera Baird is lying remarkably low...

2009-06-04T05:18:00.000-07:00

Following the exposure of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Councils' and Vera Bairds' behaviour in the film "Coatham a common concern", following the exposure that she "persuaded" both Rachel and I to stand as independent candidates against Labour candidates in the 2007 local elections ( something that she should be thrown out of the party for ) and following the exposure in the Daily Telegraph that she claimed public money to splash out on a new kitchen in her house in Redcar and tried to claim £286.00 of public money for a Christmas tree and pretty decorations when she had no right to do so, our less than credible MP seems to have just dropped off the Radar completely?

Where is she? Where has she gone? Apparantly she was last seen with Lord Lucan some weeks ago!

What made me wonder most of all about her sudden 'disappearance' and about her refusal to answer emails and letters from her constituents, was when I watched the local news last night on TV at 10.30pm. There was a news feature included about people from Corus going over to Korea to try to save 2000 steel jobs in Redcar. But who made the official statement about it? You would have thought that it would have been the Redcar MP Vera Baird, but no, it was the MP for the neighbouring constituency of East Cleveland and Middlesbrough South, Ashok Kumar, who gave the interview.

Pathetic. After having been caught out trying to dip her already, thickly buttered bread in the public gravy YET AGAIN; after having being exposed in a film trying to cover up the actions of her unlawful, illegal, maladministrating two star council and its overpaid, deliberately disingenuous, sharp practising, evidence changing, planning condition changing, public money misusing officers; after having tried to threaten elderly Church Wardens into not showing the film that she claimed was libellous but has taken no legal action against; and after being exposed as having committed a Labour Party cardinal sin, this uncaring, two faced, greedy, incompetent, untruthful, overpaid woman, has laid so low that she could crawl underneath a snake wearing a top hat. More than that, rather than come out from hiding and show her face to make a statement herself about the steel plant that is under siege in her own constituency, she lets the MP for a neighbouring constituency do her dirty work.

This is absolutely disgraceful and if she had any shred of decency at all, she would stand down not only from her position as the Solicitor General of this Country but as our MP at the next General Election too.

Another letter to our disgraceful MP...

2009-06-03T03:43:00.000-07:00

Below is a copy of yet another letter to our MP Vera Baird. I have sent five emails to her previously without her answering one. Lets see if I get a reply to this one?

Dear Ms Baird,

Following the announced resignations of Jacqui Smith and Hazel Blears among others because of the exposure of their immoral and fraudulent expenses claims, will you confirm that it is your intention to follow their lead and also resign? Your attempts to cover up the unlawful and illegal actions of individuals within Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, the exposure of the fact that you " persuaded " individuals to stand for a group other than the Labour group, against Labour candidates in the 2007 local elections and the exposure of the fact that you attempted to claim £286.00 of public money that you were not entitled to for Christmas trees and baubles, aswell as money for refurbishing the kitchen in your second home in Redcar shows your true worth as MP and as a resident of this borough I demand that you do the right and proper thing, if you have any shred of decency in you, and not only resign your position of Solicitor General which you are, in the opinion of many people in this area not fit to hold and also stand down as MP for Redcar at the next election.

I await your response.

Peace,

Chris Mcglade.

Dacorum or Redcar and Cleveland? They could be one and the same.

2009-05-28T02:35:00.000-07:00

I've just been pointed in the direction of the link below. Read about this most rotten of local authorities and honestly you would think that you were reading about Redcar and Cleveland.

http://www.mhumphrey.btinternet.co.uk/PageIJ3.html

Do it for your children...

2009-05-27T10:57:00.000-07:00

Below is the leaflet that is starting to be distributed around the Borough. Come to see the film, listen to the facts and do something about it. If you don't want to do it for yourselves, then do it for your children and your grandchildren so that hopefully, they never have to fight as hard for the right to be heard or to have justice done.

Click image to view full size:

Click image to view full size:

The truth is on tour...

2009-05-19T23:10:00.000-07:00

"Coatham...a Common Concern" a film that attracted 600 to Coatham Church in three nights, is now going on the road. Here are some more dates and venues...

Thur 21st May:..NEW MARSKE Club
Frid.29th May:.. SALTBURN Community Theatre
Thur 4th .June: .LAZENBY Club
Tues 9th .June: GUISBOROUGH Quoit Club
Wed 10th June:.REDCAR Priory Club
Thur 18th June:.MARSKE Working Men's Club

All 7.30pm - Admission free / donations welcomeexcept Saltburn which is £3 due to hire of venue & cinema equipment.

We are aiming to show this film in as many venues across this borough and this area in order to show the real truth about this Coatham Development to as many people as we possibly can. The councils lies, arrogance, failure, ineptitude, secrecy, mismanagement and misuse of public money regarding this scheme will be shown backed up with all of the facts and all of the documents.

No mealy mouthed rubbish, half answers, spin, or downright lies...

Just the truth. www.pancrack.tv/news.html

All this chopping and changing? Which version is the truth?

2009-05-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

It was interesting to see the councils questions and answers feature regarding Coatham yesterday. According to this fresh spinning exercise I came across yesterday they are claiming that...

"Over the last 7 years, the Council has been working towards the delivery of a major regeneration project at Coatham Links.
During that time, we have secured a development partner - Persimmon Homes Ltd - and assembled an £85million funding package of public and private resources to deliver hundreds of new homes, a new indoor and outdoor leisure and sports facility with swimming complex, new coastguard/lifeguard station, and high quality open space. The Masterplan also includes a health village and opportunities for other commercial opportunities such as public house/restaurant, a children’s nursery and further leisure facilities including extreme sports. The scheme will bring major benefits to Coatham and Redcar as well as the wider Borough. As a major regeneration project the scheme has the potential to create 200 new jobs and boost the local economy with increased visitor spending. This will provide opportunities for local people - in training and employment and benefits to local businesses".

In further detail, the scheme will include:

• A new public Leisure Centre – with competition swimming pool, leisure and
children’s pools, fitness suite, performing arts space, indoor sports hall for a range of activities , outdoor 5 a side courts, and beauty treatment facilities. A dance floor of similar size to the current provision in the existing Redcar Leisure Centre will be incorporated.
• High Quality Public Open space – the improvement works currently being
completed at the Boating Lake is an advanced element. Piazzas, boulevards and
promenade including any necessary additional sea defence works will be
completed under the scheme.
• Extreme Sports Village – development of the current business operated by
Enterprise West Ltd operating the Mungle Jungle/Rkade. The Council is working with them to achieve this.

But in a different council spinning/damage limitation exercise from May 6th they said...

Coatham Links will be a mixed use development which will provide:
A new state-of-the-art leisure centre with 6 lane 25m pool, leisure pool, dance floor/performance space, 8 court sports hall, junior gym, 75 station fitness suite
357 new dwellings offering a range of new homes for first-time buyers, families and retirement
New public spaces, lighting and landscaping
Combined public sector and private sector £millions investment
The creation - either directly or indirectly of up to 200 new jobs
New public house and restaurant
LifeStyle Sports Village
Health Village
Childrens Nursery

How is it that on the 6th of May the council tell the public that the scheme will definitely be providing a childrens nursery and public house and yet yesterday on the 19th of May, they tell the public that there is only an opportunity for these things to be provided?

How come on the 6th of May there was no mention of the new leisure centre containing beauty treatment facilities, but on the 19th of May there is?

How is it that on the 6th of May the council tell the public that a health village will be provided as part of the scheme but on the 19th it isn't even mentioned in the detailed list of what is going to be provided? It only gets a brief mention, sandwiched in amongst some of the things that there are opportunities for, but no firm commitment to. This is easy to explain though. ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU READ THE LETTER FROM THE PCT ON THIS SITE WHICH SAYS THAT THE PCT ARE LOOKING TO SITE THIS DOCTORS SURGERY ELSEWHERE!

On the 6th of May, there is something listed that is called the Lifestyle sports village. I asked on this blog then, is this the same thing as the Extreme Sports village? And lo and behold, yesterday on the 19th of May, the Lifestyle Sports village has gone and the Extreme sports village appears? It says that the council are working with them to achieve this, the important words there are "working with".

They haven't got funding for it and they never will have. The council have given the owners of the Mungle Jungle 125 year lease and still they cannot raise the money. As the MP said to me and other members of our group, they could give the owners of the mungle jungle a 1000 year lease and they still wouldn't be able to raise the money.

On the 6th of May they don't mention in the list of things that the scheme will provide, that it will provide piazzas, boulevards or a promenade, but on the 19th of May, they do? Also why do they refer to the sea defence as any necessary when they know that it is definitely necessary. So necessary is it, it was a part of the Coatham Planning Application and the EA laid down planning conditions about its construction.

I ask you, when they are twisting, turning and deliberately misleading the public what does it say? When they change things from one week to the next, what does it say?

It says that they know that their game is up. It says that they know that they have been caught out and they are desperately trying to tell people anything to convince them that all is well.

Go and see the film "Coatham a Common concern" and you will see the real facts and know that things are far from well with this scheme or with our council and MP.

The desperate words of desperate people...

2009-05-19T10:48:00.001-07:00

Here is the main part of the new questions and answers article on the councils website. I have coloured my responses to them in blue. Their answers are untruthful and desperate. See what rubbish is being touted by a council, backed up by an MP, who are running out of steam and ideas. I have just spoken to Mrs Lydia Spiller the lady whos name is at the bottom of the article.

I asked her what her involvement with this article was, because it is filled with untrue comments and statements that are totally misleading. She said that she had had no involvement in it at all. I told her that when I found out who had written it then we would seriously consider taking legal action as the article, in stating that the public should not be taken in by our allegations, are basically saying that we are lying when in truth, all of the things that we have said in our newsletter and film can be substantiated with documents and witness statements.

Can you believe that she asked me to send her a copy of the film so that they could watch it. I told her that if she wanted to see it then she should come to one of the screenings around the borough and sit among the people who pay her wages and whilst shes at it, bring 59 councillors with her.

Q. When was planning permission for the new scheme given?
A. May 2007.

Q. Can I see the designs for the scheme?
A. The Coatham Links Masterplan showing the location of the facilities and visual design
concepts will shortly be on the Council’s website www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk
Information on further design detail will be given on the Council’s website when this becomes available.
As detailed designs are developed these will be made available to the public, elected Members and staff.

Q. The Council has often been asked why do we need the housing?
A. A mix of housing and leisure is essential to provide the range of facilities and benefits that we can achieve through the scheme and secure the necessary finance. The scheme has not attracted any of the facilities that the council have been talking about for five years apart from the leisure centre and pool which is being paid for with over 13,000,000 pounds worth of borrowed money, something which isnt dependent on housing.
Developing some ( two thirds of the site ) of the land for housing will help to pay for the leisure facilities by enabling the Council to access capital receipts and Grants that otherwise would not be available. The capital receipt from Persimmon will help provide the infrastructure for the site and no grants for leisure, save £500,000 from Sport England have been attracted. Persimmon will pay the Council a £5.6million capital receipt for the land. Under the FOI act we learned that the land had been given a value of just over £4,500,000 in 2006 so why should Persimmon pay a million pounds more than it's been valued at? allocated for housing and the Council will receive Grants totalling £11.3million. This will contribute to the cost of the new sports and leisure centre, highways and high quality public open space improvements.???The grants that the council speak of aren't for leisure at all. They are to assist Persimmon in preparing the site. Getting rid of UXO, Contaminants etc. They are also to provide a combined heating plant that Persimmon were supposed to use to help heat their houses, but aren't.

Despite the current downturn generally in the housing market across the UK there is still demand for more housing in Redcar. If that is the case, then why have the Liberal Democrats in their most recent LibDem focus newsletter stated that the population in the town is decreasing and that there isn't the need for so much housing?

Without the housing, the development would not include the new sports and leisure facilities or the swimming complex. Completely untrue as the council is borrowing the money to provide the pool/leisure centre.

Q. When will the Coatham Development start and finish?
A. Following a legal challenge planning permission for the scheme is in place
The start date on site will be affected by the outcome of ongoing legal action by protestors to register the land for development as a Village Green. Unfortunately the timescale when this will be known is not within the Council’s control, however, a decision is expected imminently. How do they know? More bias and pre-determination here possibly? ( If it is, have things been influenced by people in high places? )
The earliest start envisaged is later this year, this would mean completion of the whole development by mid 2012. The earliest start? this surely means that there is a latest start envisaged also and as such, the scheme isn't realistically going to start for some time to come?

Q. Who owns the land often referred to as Coatham Common?
A. The Council owns the land; its title is registered with the Land Registry. The council may hold the deeds for the land, but it is the people of Redcar who own the land as it is stated in protective covenants that it is to be used by them for leisure purposes in perpetuity.It is also included on residents of High Street West Deeds, that they have access to the land, something that a Chancery Court Judge instructed the council to release details of, but 18 months later, still have not?

Q. Is the site being sold at its commercial value?
A. The site was independently valued before the Council signed the Development Agreement with Persimmon Homes Ltd. Is it just me or can everyone see that they have completely ignored their own question here? In truth, what they dont want you to know, is that the land in the Coatham Enclosure was valued in 2006, when land prices and house prices were booming, at just over £4,500,000? Such a low figure for thirty five acres of coastline with planning permission to build 359 luxury apartments and homes? When you take into consideration that just SEVEN ACRES OF LAND in Marton in Middlesbrough to build just 70 houses on was valued at EIGHT AND A HALF MILLION POUNDS, £4,000,000 more than what 35 acres in Redcar has been valued at with planning permission for five times the number of properties, then what on earth is going on?

Q. Have any planning conditions changed without permission?
Suggestions, No suggestions have been made at all. The truth has been told however that Council Officer Simon dale changed the EA's planning condition regarding the construction of the seadefence in Coatham.have been made that one of the Environment Agency planning conditions was changed without permission. The planning conditions outlined in the formal response from the Environment Agency were taken into account when the planning application was determined. One of the conditions was strengthened to ensure that any necessary works to the sea wall are implemented before the buildings are occupied. This is an absolutely untrue. The EA's planning condition clearly stated that the Coatham Sea Defence had to be constructed before the houses were built. Simon Dale changed it to the sea defence had to be constructed before the houses were occupied. This did not strengthen the planning condition at all and as the EA said in an email to Ian Hopley, the changing of the condition was done without consent from, or consultation with the EA and it is unlikely that they would have agreed to it. This change was made with the proper authority? I think the statement that I've just made and which we have already proved with the relevant documents, shows that it wasn't.

Q. What leisure facilities will be available to the public at Coatham when
construction starts? None.
A. Construction on site will take place in managed phases in order to minimise disruption to local residents and other users of the site.
One of the first elements to be constructed will be the new Leisure Centre. The current facility will remain open for as long as possible but will need to be demolished to make way for a new Leisure Centre. This proves that there will be no leisure facilities at Coatham when construction starts because the first thing that they will do is demolish the bowl and leisure centre. Interim arrangements are being explored to maintain a level of the sports facilities currently available at the Redcar Leisure Centre. People will be notified when this is known.The facilities offered at Mungle Jungle/Rkade will still be accessible. Other factors that will be considered are minimising disruption to local residents and businesses, vehicle and pedestrian routes, and parking. This will be Impossible when one of the main arteries into the town is closed.

Q. How will increased traffic be dealt with?
A. A number of improvements will happen. Improvements at the Trunk Road junction have already taken place with additional filter lanes on the east and west approaches. A Traffic management plan will be submitted to the Council by Persimmon to maintain traffic flows through the site during construction. Traffic calming measures have been proposed for High Street West to avoid ‘rat runs’ although some local people are opposing this. There isn't even a traffic impact assesment in place when there will be so much traffic chaos caused and they are wanting to start work in a few months time? What does this say to you? High Street West is too narrow to have two way traffic and the kink in the road at the top of High Street West on Majuba Road will mean that it will be virtually impossible to be overcome.

In a few words the traffic will not be dealt with at all and if there were another 300-400 cars there as a result of people living in those houses, the whole area would be gridlocked.

Q. How many parking spaces are to be provided?
A. The current plan envisages around 660 spaces including allocations for motorcycles, disabled people, horse boxes and coaches subject to final design detailing. What they aren't saying is that visitor car parking will be reduced because a high number of these car parking spaces will be for the people who use the leisure centre and pool. The seafront car park, where people sit in their cars whilst their children play on the beach will be gone and a much smaller car park will be situated at one end of the caravan park behind sand dunes.

Q. Will sailors, windsurfers, kiteboarders and other users still have unrestricted
access to the beach?
A. It is important to facilitate these users and access will still be permitted for a whole variety of uses and a Beach Management Plan is being drawn up to enable users to enjoy the beach in a safe manner while recognising the need to ensure by law the safe protection of wildlife and the environment.

Once again, they fail to answer the question. English Nature as part of their agreement to lift their objection to the scheme, stipulated that the beach at Coatham had to be restricted use on a seasonal and spacial basis to extreme sports users and horse riders. This fact was brought out and established in open court at the footpaths hearing in March 2007 in the magistrates court in Middlesbrough. The council DARE NOT tell the public that a public beach will be restricted to the public though as a result of these houses being built!

Q. What is the current position on the Village Green application submitted by
protestors to the scheme?
A. We understand that representatives of the Friends of Coatham Common have submitted an appeal against a decision by the Legal Services Commission to refuse further legal aid. The protestors’ purpose is to pursue an appeal to the House of Lords to register the land allocated for development as a Village Green. This follows unanimous decisions by Appeal Court judges to refuse previous appeals by the protestors using legal aid against the Council’s decision to reject this second Village Green Application.

Q. Did the Council engage a Barrister to provide a legal opinion about the
Restrictive Covenants associated with the scheme and then keep this confidential? Yes they did. Despite all of the rubbish below, thats exactly what happened, it was even in the Evening Gazette in 2006 the MP even spoke out against it. If the Barristers opinion had gone in the councils favour why hide behind confidentiality or as people normally refer to it, secrecy? After all, the whole reason for obtaining the opinion in the first place was to settle the issue of covenants once and for all. It was recommended by the Coatham Scrutiny committee and approved by the councils cabinet that the opinion be sought and relayed to the public. It was stopped from being made public by the now ex-CEO? On an issue connected with this, did the council have to employ a top London Barrister at a reported cost of £12,500 a day, for three days, to argue a case to divert and close footpaths in a magistrates court in Middlesbrough? A case that should have been argued by the councils own legal officer. When the council advertised this stopping order, they even admitted that the covenants were there and that they did have a relevance.
A. The Council has a responsibility to balance a number of often conflicting interests in contractual matters such as the Development Agreement in place between the Council and Persimmon Homes Ltd. In applying the public interest test to this specific matter, the Council has concluded that the public interest in maintaining exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing this information. This is covered by Access to Information Procedure Rules.

Q. Did the Council pay for legal and consultancy costs incurred by Persimmon
without a Section 106 Agreement?
A. The Council is only paying for legal and consultancy advice which it directly benefits from. The fact is that it was not the councils responsibility to pay for any of Persimmons legal or consultancy costs at all and as the leaked document from 2006 shows, the council agreed to take the unprecedented step of paying for Persimmons legal and consultancy fees to and I quote "keep Persimmons confidence" The fact that there was no Section 106 Agreement is not of any consequence as we have a contractual relationship with Persimmon in our Development Agreement and this incorporates many of the benefits normally incorporated in a Section 106 Agreement. The fact that there is no 106 agreement in place means that Persimmon have absolutely no legally binding commitment to providing any community or leisure facilities at all in regard to this scheme. They have not paid towards the boating lakes refurbishment, they aren't paying for an extra classroom and they aren't contributing financially to any leisure facilities either because the council are having to borrow the money and they did not pay for the road improvements on the Trunk Road. So like with the Barristers opinion, instead of keeping it secret, show us the development agreement and lets see what we are actually getting from Persimmon in the way of benefits?

Q. A minority of protestors to the scheme have made allegations of corruption
within the Council in relation to this scheme.
A. A minority of protestors have alleged there is corruption within the Council in relation to this scheme and that it is being driven forward against residents’ wishes. These allegations have been investigated by the Police, Courts, Audit Commission, the local Member of Parliament and the Ombudsman – all of which has confirmed that the Council has done nothing wrong. ABSOLUTELY UNTRUE.

We urge the public not to be taken in by these allegations.They are nothing more than a spoiling tactic to try to thwart the scheme. Hang on, our 'allegations', even though they are backed up with documents and witness statements, have been described on your website as libellous and untrue. Where's the libel action? Where's the writ? Where's the injunction stopping the film being shown?

Exactly, you haven't issued any. I wonder why that is?

Further information
If you would like further information about the Coatham Links Regeneration project please
contact:
• Alan Logan, Regeneration Project Manager 01642 444235
• Lydia Spiller, Regeneration Specialist 01642 44435 May 2009.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the latest untrue, knee jerk, panicking rubbish that is being put out by a desperate council who have been and are continuing to be, exposed every time they try to defend the untruths they have already told. They are telling lies in order to cover more lies and as if this isn't bad enough, they have our MP Vera Baird helping them to cover these actions. This article is a response to our newsletter and our film that contains all of the facts. The council has cherry picked things from our newsletter to answer. They have not told the truth in their answers and in some cases they haven't offered answers at all.

But then they have, for some reason, ignored completely a whole raft of things that were contained in our newsletter and one can only ask why? Why haven't they attempted to mention,or answer why the council and Persimmon Homes were working on Coatham together a year before the scheme was even advertised as a leisure scheme not a housing scheme? Something that was taken to the Ombudsman but the Ombudsman did nothing about? So much for being investigated by the Ombudsman?

Why haven't they mentioned the fact that the council acted highly irregularly by signing the development agreement two days before the local elections and two weeks before G.O.N.E had decided whether or not to call the scheme in?

Why haven't they mentioned the immoral, unlawful and even illegal behaviour of senior officers of this council in Employment tribunals. Officers who were all heavily involved in the Coatham scheme?

Why are they careful not to mention the amounts of public borrowing that are needed to provide a pool and new leisure centre because they have attracted practically no funding whatsoever?

Why haven't they mentioned the fact that officers of this council have illegally changed minutes of meetings and exceeded their spending powers under delegated authority?

Why haven't they mentioned that George Dunning called for the ex-CEO's investigation twice to then let him off the hook and out of the back door with a £360,000 pay deal?

Why haven't they mentioned the supression of an audit report carried out by the same officers who featured so badly in tribunals, which showed that the council weren't a four star authority at all?

Why haven't they mentioned that there are two letters from the Serious Fraud Office which state that their actions pertain and I quote "to corruption" and that they "should be investigated by the police possibly assisted by the CPS"?

They haven't mentioned any of these things in their pathetic response to our newsletter and what they have tried to answer they have answered untruthfully.

This council and Vera Baird have run out of time. They have no credibility anymore. Their reputations are in shreds and the truth about them and all that they have said is there for all to see. They have no way to turn and they have no way to go and everytime that they try to wriggle out of what they have said, they incriminate themselves even further.

This just has to stop. It is up to every last decent person in this borough to say no to what is happening here and call for them all to be investigated independently

Lets get rid of them all...

2009-05-19T06:42:00.000-07:00

About two months ago I sat and watched a programme on TV called "On the Fiddle". In this programme, a camera crew followed people around who were suspected of benefit fraud. Normally the people who 'fiddle the dole' are people who are living on the breadline, or who are on low income, to begin with. They don't have an annual income of around £125,000 per year and they dont have two homes.

These people are hounded, these people have TV commercials dedicated to encouraging other people to "shop a benefit cheat". These people when caught, have their benefit stopped, are investigated and if they are found guilty, they are taken to court and prosecuted.

So why is it then, that MP's in the House of Commons can STEAL thousands of pounds of public money by claiming for mortgages that are paid off, they can STEAL public money by claiming for the renovation of their homes, can even attempt to STEAL money by claiming for CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS under their bent system and yet they think that they can get away with everything by saying, now that they have been caught out, that they are sorry, they didn't mean to do it, we'll pay the money back and all of the other lame excuses that have been tumbling from their mouths.

They all make me sick to the stomach. People like Vera Baird make me sick most of all. She actually tried to defend her immoral behaviour. She tried to say that just because her £300.00 claim for Christmas decorations had been turned down, that she hadn't done anything wrong! Like her intention to claim for baubles and fancies ( since when were they ever essential to her job as MP ) was of no concern at all. She tried to abuse the system, she tried to take public money that she had no entitlement to, just like all of the people who are hounded by the DSS benefit fraud squads. She and all of her Westminster cronies should be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted. Not only are her low morals on display with her eagerness to try to cream money that she was not entitled to, they are on display when you see how she has tried to help the local authority in her constituency, cover up their terrible, possibly corrupt behaviour in particular, regarding the Coatham Enclosure Development. They are on display when you see that she tried to threaten a Church Warden in order to try and stifle the truth and as if that wasn't bad enough, and I have the email from her to prove it, they are on display when you see that she encouraged Rachel and I to stand as independents against Labour candidates in the elections two years ago, something that she should be thrown out of the Labour Party for.

Instead of having a TV camera crew following suspected benefit cheats around in order to make a cheap TV programme, we should have one following our elected MP's around, on their huge salaries and with two or even three homes, and we should be hounding them all the way into the courts. Fraud is fraud, theft is theft, no matter whether you're unemployed on a hundred pounds or so a fortnight, or an MP on £10,000 A MONTH. Infact when you look at it like that, I know which instance of theft and fraud I think is worse.

When they are on that much money every month, why can't they pay for their own kitkats, plugs and Christmas decorations?

Never mind offering the speaker of the House as a sacrificial lamb to appease the public who are baying for blood, never mind guilty MP's leading the attack on the speaker in order to try and take the heat off them, lets have them all out, lets have them all investigated and lets have them all prosecuted.

After all, if the Telegraph had not exposed this grand theft and deception, would any of those who were dipping their fat noses in our trough, have ever owned up to what they were doing? Of course they wouldn't. More than this, this corruption and fraud is institutionalised, it has been going on for who knows how long?

2009-05-18T13:47:00.000-07:00

Hang on a minute! Look at this breaking news story..
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090518/tuk-mp-accused-over-10-000-decor-claim-6323e80.html

Wouldn't it be a turn up for the books if this MP's Thamesmead apartments were one of the Persimmon Apartments featured in articles in the Times and Building Magazine about this Persimmon development and the forty million pound fraud scandal that surrounds it?

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article2283035.ece

http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3080122

The medical village HAS bitten the dust...Despite what the council tell us.

2009-05-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

Take a close look at this letter from the PCT stating clearly that they are looking at four alternative sites for the 5GP surgery ( Medical Village ) that found its way into the Coatham Planning Application without anyone knowing. I wonder why the PCT, as we reported weeks ago, are pulling out and looking for another site? The man from the PCT says that is for the reasons that the person who wrote the letter to them alluded to.

Those reasons that are not listed, included the fact that the council and Persimmon were not going to be able to deliver this disastrous, tainted and botched ( to quote our MP and council leader ) scheme. So obviously the PCT agree with us. But I am also wondering why Stephen Childs, the PCT manager who was involved to a large extenet in the addition of this surgery to the Coatham Planning application without anyone being consulted or knowing about it, who was aware of the massive conflict of interests between Mrs Veronica Moore who was pushing the surgery as a board member of the PCT whilst her husband Colin, was pushing its inclusion as the Chief Executive of the council, is now working in a different department of the PCT?

Read this letter though and cast your minds back less than two weeks, to when the council and Vera Baird claimed in their joint statement on the councils website, that the Coatham scheme was to include a health village. Their lies and untruths get more and more transparent every time they open their mouths.

Last week I was also talking to someone from the council who told me that people who use the Coatham Bowl and leisure centre were fed up with the arguments between our group and the council and all that they wanted was a new leisure centre because the roof was leaking. It shouldnt still be leaking when nearly FORTY THOUSAND POUNDS was spent on fixing the roof less than 6 months ago?

People can see through her...

2009-05-15T15:31:00.000-07:00

Here is part of Robert Goodwill MP's statement from the 8th of May.

"I would not have agreed to show the film if I had know that in that ten minutes there were at least three allegations of financial corruption or conspiracy against the Council and its officers. There were also allegations that the local MP had been aware of this corruption and chose to ignore it. I immediately distanced myself from these new allegations to the audience when the film was over.

"Whilst I am sure that there are lessons to be learned from the whole Coatham Enclosure saga and the way a few local residents still feel dissatisfied with the way their objections were discounted, I refuse to endorse allegations of dishonesty against the Council and I have discussed what was said about her with Vera Baird, the local MP, and I am satisfied that it is untrue.

It would seem that after calling for her to be investigated by the police, Ray Mallon doesn't agree. I think that if the truth was known, Mr Goodwill doesn't agree with his own statement either.

Oh Dear Ms Baird, Robocop wants you to be invetsigated by the police.

2009-05-15T04:17:00.000-07:00

After a week that saw Vera Baird try to threaten a Church warden into not showing our film in his church, fail to take legal action against the film which exposes the truth about her and the local authority in her constituency that she has tried to protect and be exposed as trying to claim for Christmas decorations and a tree under a system that is supposed to pay the expenses that are relevant to the job, Ray Mallon, Mayor of Middlesbrough, is now calling for Ms Baird among others, to be investigated by the police. This comes on the day that the legal minister underneath Ms Baird Solicitor General of this country, has just stepped down because of all of the expenses sleaze.

Things are certainly hotting up for our Vera aren't they?

Ray Mallon calls for police investigation into MPs expenses
May 15 2009 by Sandy McKenzie, Evening Gazette

THE ROW over MPs’ expenses claims took a new turn today when Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon called for a police investigation. Here Mr Mallon, who served as a police officer for 27 years before becoming Middlesbrough’s elected Mayor in 2002, explains why he has made an official complaint to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

There are now countless examples of MPs bending the rules to their advantage but just two examples stand out to me as illustrating how the House of Commons still doesn’t understand what they have done.

First we have the increasingly ridiculous figure of the speaker Michael Martin. Instead of demanding police investigate this abuse of public funds he calls for them to instead investigate the leaking of these figures. I cannot think of a case with a better “in the public interest” defence than this one. Whoever provided this information to the Telegraph has merely informed the general public how their money has been spent. He or she should be given a medal not berated.

Secondly, earlier this week, on the day that Corus announced more than 2,000 workers on Teesside could lose their jobs (along with thousands of others in supply industries), we discover that a local MP, Vera Baird, expected constituents to pay nearly £300 for her Christmas decorations.

An eminent lawyer, Ms Baird argues there is no shame in the fact this claim was rejected. The Gazette reported her as saying: “In cases where you are not sure the claim is acceptable, you put it in.”

This mindset, clearly prevalent throughout Parliament, illustrates what has gone wrong. MPs should not be regarding expense claims as a wheel of fortune, they should not be claiming a penny from the taxpayer unless they are absolutely certain it is justified as essential to their work as an MP and if the claim is rejected they should be mortified.

The Green Book provides guidelines on MPs’ allowances and spells out that claims can only be made for expenditure necessary to perform Parliamentary duty. It actually states: “claims should be above reproach” and that members should “avoid purchases that could be seen as extravagant or luxurious”.

But I believe the reports in the Telegraph and elsewhere have exposed something far more serious than the mere insensitivity or greed of some MPs.

What does this statement say about Cllr Chris Abbott and Cllr George Dunning?

2009-05-15T01:29:00.000-07:00

Below is a newspaper article from the Northern Echo dated 29th March 2008. In this article Cllr Abbott says of Colin Moore "As a chief executive, he has been brilliant. He saved the council £30m on the deal he got for us on equal pay."

Firstly as employment tribunals prove, the council under the leadership of Colin Moore, saved the council money regarding equal pay by underhanded means. One of the dinnerladies who was offered the pay settlement pittance of five thousand pounds, went to tribunal and won her rightful amount - £32,000. Something which featured on the front page of the Guardian newspaper but strangely failed to get a mention in the councils peoples, pride and progress magazine or on the councils website? What Mr Abbott also doesn't mention is that the union man who was supposed to be working on behalf of these lowly paid workers was actually working for Moore and the officers and who, when he had persuaded dinnerladies to settle for such a derisory sum, was given a job in management himself! Unfortunately this led him to being thrown out of the union that he had represented for thirty years. Yes lets all join in with Mr Abbotts applause at lowly paid dinnerladies being conned by Moore and his cronies. It's like I said the other day, Abbott and co. may regard this as a victory, but whats the victory worth when it's been won through stealth and cheating?

But lets also look at some other words that were used to describe Moores actions in different tribunals. We have deliberately disingenuous ( lying ) sharp practise, changing evidence overnight, bullying, intimidation, concealing, I was at the Tait tribunal where it was established that in Mr Moore and other officers concealing the truth about parking tickets that the council had acted illegally.
You could also throw in for good measure that Moore was in charge of a council with a £12,000,000 black hole in its budget, who messed up with Liberata at a huge cost to the council, who was involved in a massive conflict of interests regarding the 5 GP surgery which appeared in the Coatham plans from nowhere, who's actions whilst under Lib Dem control resulted in the council being downgraded to a two star authority and who surpressed an audit commission report which showed that the council never was a four star authority to begin with. We have him in a letter to the MP acting like the 'President' of the council, totally subventing the council in telling the MP that he will agree to meet her if she agrees to his requests, we have him totally subventing the council in him keeping a barristers opinion regarding the Coatham covenants secret, when the elected councillors who were on the cabinet had ordered that it be made public. We have him acting secretly regarding the council withdrawing support for TVR ( something that prompted a second call for his investigation ) and twice under his control, this council was found by the Ombudsman to have been guilty of maladministration.

Now, I ask you, are any of these documented facts consistent with Councillor Abbotts description of "As a chief executive, he has been brilliant".

Equally though, the article leaves George Dunning with egg on his face too. For here we have Mr Dunning attacking Colin Moore for his excessive pay and yet George Dunning let this absolute cowboy, leave this council with a two year enhanced pay deal worth THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THOUSAND POUNDS! Not only that, he called for Moores investigation twice as leader of the opposition and yet when Moore announced his retirement Mr Dunning let him leave without as much as a question asked in anger and a glowing reference akin to Mr Abbotts, in the press?

They are such forty faced, hypocrites and all of these facts lead any normal person to ask the question what hypnotic hold has Colin Moore held over all of them?

Council leader joins row over high-paid executives
From the archive, first published Saturday 29th Mar 2008.

A COUNCIL leader has spoken out over a local authority pay row by criticising highly paid chief executives and referring to "people that run around after the highest salaries".Councillor George Dunning, the leader of the ruling Labour party on Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, hit out at a previous administration in charge of the council responsible for increasing the pay given to its senior officers.Coun Dunning spoke out after the publication of a Town Hall Rich List by the Taxpayers' Alliance which revealed that a record number of North-East council officers earned more than £100,000-a-year in 2006-7.In Redcar, seven officers broke this limit, which Coun Dunning said was the result of decisions taken by a previous Liberal Democrat-Conservative-Independent coalition which took office in 2003, before losing control in May last year. He said: "My personal view on the fact that the coalition has left the new Labour administration with a legacy of the highest group of officers in the North-East on salaries over a £100,000 shows that the coalition knew nothing about the people of Redcar and Cleveland's feelings towards very high officers' salaries, hence they voted the coalition out."There are some local authority chiefs getting more than our Prime Minister and that cannot be correct."Having been a steel worker, working with people who work their socks off in difficult conditions to get a living wage, makes these salaries look like winning the Lottery."In Redcar and Cleveland, we want the best people for the job and who want to work for us, and not people that run around after the highest salaries."Three of those included in the list have since left the council, including chief executive Colin Moore, who earned £151,282 in 2006-7.Councillor Chris Abbott, leader of the Lib Dem group on the council, said the council officers in question had justified their increasing salaries.He said: "The council has only paid peanuts in the past and could not attract the top staff and as a result it showed in its performance."By paying the going rate for the job it means you get the best people."Referring to Mr Moore, he said: "As a chief executive, he has been brilliant. He saved the council £30m on the deal he got for us on equal pay."Meanwhile, Durham County Council said three of its senior officers who were included on the list had also left, and not been replaced.The authority confirmed that prior to his leaving, chief executive Mark Lloyd, who is due to take up a new role with Cambridgeshire County Council next month, had a salary range of between £151,000 and £190,000.A spokesman said: "To attract the best and brightest people to deliver value for money it is essential to pay a suitable wage."

Now why is that?

2009-05-14T00:20:00.000-07:00

Why is it that we have been castigated by Vera Baird and the council for asking the question "Is Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council corrupt", when the Serious Fraud Office, Audit Commission and an MP have all asked the same thing?

After being provided with the facts and documents, The Serious Fraud Office stated in writing that what has happened here in Redcar and Cleveland pertains to corruption and should be investigated by the police possibly assisted by the CPS, the Audit Commissions corporate assesor asked if we thought that there was corruption existing over Coatham and Ashok Kumar MP asked me himself in a meeting in his constituency office in Guisborough in 2005 if we thought that the council was corrupt.

If there wasn't a whiff of corruption to be had anywhere surrounding Coatham or this council, why have two Government bodies and a Government representative all asked the same question? I would like to point out that it was at this point in my summation in Parliament last week, that Robert Goodwill MP, who had been well informed about the above, stopped me.

The truth is coming out and they just can't stop it...

2009-05-12T04:34:00.000-07:00

When I started the campaign for Coatham in August 2004, I started it because I wanted to stop the building of houses upon our coastline and I wanted to inform the public of this area of the truth about this Development. Over a period of five years I, along with hundreds of other people who have rallied to this campaign, have been successful on both counts.

However, when I looked at Mondays Evening Gazette, I realised that that this campaign, the campaign that I have given heart, body and soul to, is on one count, almost over. After five years the truth, the truth that this council have been denying for five years, was there in black and white. The new leisure centre and pool was now costing a whopping £13,800,000 and that money hadn't been 'levered' in from Persimmon building their houses because they haven't built any and it hadn't come from external grants and funding that had been 'attracted' as a result of Persimmon building their houses either, it has come from this council borrowing the money. Money that we will have to pay back through our council tax being raised.

I always remember ex council officer Peter Ellis saying in front of me, Charles Davis and Cllr Madge Moses at the councils exhibition in the Coatham Bowl in 2005, that we could and I quote "have a baths without having the houses because we could borrow the money" A stunned Madge Moses said "Peter! what are you saying?" "But of course we aren't going to borrow the money Madge" replied Mr Ellis. I knew then, when this now ex-senior officer of the council said that, that these officers and this council were lying to the public and more than this, to the elected councillors themselves, who now for some reason are happy to take part in the lie?.

It is there for all to see that we don't have to have the houses to have a pool and it is there for all to see that not only have the council systematically lied to us, along with Vera Baird, we should have had this pool provided long before now.

Borrowing money for a baths and paying it back through our council tax has been the only realistic way of this council securing the money to build one. We have said this to the council and the MP Vera Baird. Yet even though they have known this all along, even though borrowing has been written into their funding of the scheme from day one, borrowing which has gradually risen from 3 to 5 to 8 to 10.4 and now to 14 million pounds, the council have constantly denied it. I recall one meeting with Vera Baird In Charles Davis' house where Ms Baird said in front of five other people, "I dont want houses to be built on the coast and if you show me one way to get a baths without having to have the houses and without having to borrow the money and putting peoples council tax up, then I will come out and support it, but we cant borrow the money and put peoples council tax up". How ironic that she should say that, yet she isn't now speaking out against her Labour controlled council borrowing £14,000,000 in order to do the thing that she said she could never support?

I have spoken to people over the last few days who have said that people just want a baths, they are sick of the arguments between the council and us. I will say this, THAT WE WANT A BATHS TOO! We have always supported the building of a baths. But what we haven't supported is the building of 359 houses on our much loved coastline when there is absolutely no need. But it has gone much further than this now. I want a baths in Redcar, I streaked at Wembley in 1997 to try and save the one we had because it mattered to me so much, that our town should have a baths. No-one would like to see a baths in Redcar more than me. But at what cost do we want a baths?

If we accept the baths as part of this disaster (To quote Vera Baird ) of a scheme then it would be like winning a game of something, poker say, by cheating. It would mean nothing. What credibility does anyone have by winning something unfairly? We as a town surely want something that we can be proud of, an achievement that means something, that has been fought for and won fairly. Not a hollow victory that has been won through foul means not fair. This scenario is even worse when you consider that it is the Local Authority who is the cheat. But their aim is to win at all costs, to force this disaster upon us no matter what, in order to conceal their cheating.

They have done this already. It was exposed in the Tait tribunal case, that the council knew that they were putting parking tickets illegally on people because they had no Traffic Road Order in place which permitted them to do so. So what did they do? Rather than inform the public in order for money taken in illegal parking tickets to be returned, they concealed the truth and kept it away from the public. They did the same with the boroughs dinner ladies. They knew that the dinner ladies were entitled to a higher pay settlement than they offered them, but the council tried to frighten them into believeing that if they did not take their offer, then they would get nothing at all and encouraged them to take a pittance. One dinnerlady went to tribunal and was awarded her rightful amount of £32,000!

The Coatham Development is just another example of their underhandedness and their cheating in order to win at all costs. It has massive questions hanging over it. The foul stench of corruption is hanging all around it. We asked the question in our newsletter "Is Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council Corrupt?" and listed all of the facts which suggest that they may be. We have done the same in our film. It is so bad, that a group of planners from the South who have been monitoring the progress of this scheme, based on the limited information that they have been given told me that and I quote " We know that something doesn't smell quite right with this scheme"and that "every couple of months things come to light about this scheme which are more complicated and more worrying". The person who told me that, said that I could pass that information onto Mr Robert Goodwill MP for Scarborough and Whitby, which I did.

Mr Goodwill may have retracted his support for our campaign, he may say that he now doesn't believe what we have said in the film and the newsletter, but does anyone honestly think that Mr Goodwill would have risked his position as a front bench Conservative MP by showing a film in Parliament that he did not believe was true from the outset? Would he have risked his position by intervening in the constituency of the Solicitor General, if he was not certain that all of the facts and all of the documents that we had presented him with, were correct or if he had not been presented with all of the documents and facts? Would we have gone to Parliament, Vera Bairds stomping ground and stated our case so vigorously if we were lying? In every instance the answer is no.

We told him everything and gave him everything, even the newsletter asking the question of the council and still he backed us. Many believe that it was Vera Baird applying pressure to Mr Goodwill that forced his hand and the fact that he realised that things were bigger than he anticipated. Many believe that when he was informed that the council had settled the ex-assistant Chief Executives tribunal out of court, at the cost of who knows how many hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money, in order to stop the truth about what this council had done coming out into the public domain, he realised just how bad things were and that made him back out quickly. The real clincher though came in his official statement withdrawing his support for us. Mr Goodwill clearly lists allegations in his middle paragraph, that we had not made publicly ourselves? Why would he list a whole series of untrue and libellous allegations in the middle paragraph of his official retraction if they were just that?

He knows how wrong everything is with not just the Coatham Scheme, but many aspects of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council. At the meeting that he is now trying to distance himself from, he was even approached by one professional gentleman who told him that he thought that this Coatham Scheme could possibly be akin to the infamous POULSON AFFAIR! And Mr Goodwills reaction? Did he recoil in horror? No, he gave the man his card and invited him to contact him again! This followed a meeting where it had been agreed that efforts should be made by us and Mr Goodwill, to try and obtain both the barristers opinion and the development agreement for Coatham which had both been kept secret.

Whatever happened in between the screening and the retraction, one can only assume? But when you take into consideration that Vera Baird was applying pressure to Mr Goodwill right up to the screening and when you take into consideration that she tried to threaten and bully an elderly Church Warden into not allowing the film to be shown in Coatham Church, it is obvious that Ms baird applied sufficient pressure to Mr Goodwill in order to get the result that she so desperately wanted.

The only thing wrong with that is she may have applied pressure and tried to do things through stealth and intimidation, but if she had any real belief that we could not back up what we have said, if we were lying or had libelled her and her rotten council so badly, then the film would have been injuncted and we would have received writs for libel.

Despite writing to her twice inviting her to do these things. She hasn't taken us up on our offer.

So much for us lying eh?

THIRTEEN POINT EIGHT MILLION POUNDS OF BORROWING!

2009-05-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

At the start of the year approximately, about February time, possibly a little after that, we discovered documents which showed that the cost of the council borrowing to pay for a pool and leisure centre as part of the Coatham scheme had risen to fourteen million pounds! We didn't make this public because we weren't entirely certain, but today the document that suggested this has been borne out as the council, in tonights Gazette, have stated that the leisure centre and pool is now going to cost £13,800,000. Nearly fourteen million pounds of borrowed money that will have to be paid back through our council tax. Not one brick laid will be dependent upon Persimmon homes building their houses whatsoever, despite what the council have been saying.

In a line? Lying Bastards!

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, something to hide? It was never clearer than it was today.

2009-05-11T03:31:00.001-07:00

Today in Thornaby, the now ex-assistant chief executive was supposed to be starting his employment tribunal against unfair dismissal. I know, because I was one of his witnesses, that this tribunal would have rocked Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council right down to its very foundations. I was informed last week though that it had been settled out of court.

It would appear, that for legal reasons, I can say no more than this, but I will say this.

That when a council pays the sum of money that those close to this situation are talking about, in order to stop the facts coming out into a public court, then really,

WHAT DOES THAT SAY TO YOU?

More than this, senior officers within the council, the current Labour cabinet, old coalition cabinet members and a lot of councillors will all be privvy to the facts that the council have desperately covered up by settling this case out of court. More than this, if the Labour cabinet know, then it's safe to say that our Christmas tree scrounging MP Vera Baird will also know and yet rather than tackle the problem, they pay someone off, cover it all up and then say that we are wrongly smearing the hard working officers?

If they have nothing to hide, then why go to such lengths to keep the truth away from the public? Thats because as I said, the truth that was going to be spoken in open tribunal, would have possibly led to sackings, an investigation and the council being brought to its knees.

Lets have the investigation now and lets get rid of the guilty.

Our Vera's been at it for some time...

2009-05-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

By, Our V isn't averse to dipping her bread in the gravy is she? As this article from last year shows...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/rosa_prince/go/tag/view/all/Vera%20Baird

Dear Ms Baird...

2009-05-10T09:38:00.001-07:00

Below, is a letter that has been sent to Vera Baird from a resident of Marske who was outraged by her comments on the councils blogsite. This letter being sent to her follows the couple of letters that I sent to her last week calling for her to take us to court in order to disprove the things that we have said in both our newsletter and our film which was shown to over 600 people in three nights.

She didn't take out an injunction to stop the film being shown, she tried to threaten and bully the Church Warden. We haven't been issued with any libel writs, just smeared as not telling the truth and lying. The lack of any real action says it all for me.

Here is the letter...

Dear Ms Baird,

I find remarks being quoted in Press Releases on RCBC NEWS and website from you MP Vera Baird QC Solicitor General un- justified un warranted even libellous and I believe that I am owed at least a personal retraction of your harassing comments simply because I have chosen to exercise my democratic right to speak truthfully as I find following lengthy research and I can justify and more importantly provide irrefutable proof of any and all accusations I have made and will continue to make in regard to the tainted botched housing led development in Coatham ,together with my findings regarding Officer actions within Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council. as I believe, is my Human Right. I do not seek the privilege afford to you and others or intend to quote that I have at all times operated within rules as set down by my peers, I am simply clearly.

having read, what I perceive to be your disgusting, hypocritical comments, made by an advocate of Justice, a qualified barrister of high standing within her profession as a previous Junior in the practice of Michael Mansfield's chambers, my elected Parliamentary Representative and no doubt prospective Candidate for the next General Election which a large number of my colleagues, decent law abiding people Vera Baird MP QC Solicitor General, cannot wait to be called to allow us the right to decide not only who will represent us all whatever our views and political persuasion and give if other voters believe is deserved a mandate to Gordon Brown to continue as an elected Prime Minister rather than by default.

As author of such luminary entitled works including -

‘Perverting the Course of Justice’,

‘The Law of Harassment’,

‘Rape in Court’, ‘Battered Women who Kill and the Criminal Law’,

‘The Last Resort, a study of the Criminal Cases Review Commission’ who in your attempt at jocularity during 2005 Queens Speech mocked this town, your constituents, residents and did no favours with the following, now 30 year record holding locally elected Councillor East Cleveland Independent Steve Kay representing:Lockwood Ward

QUOTE-" The Labour backbencher mocked a Redcar-born colleague's former school.You said: "They were somewhat ahead of their time when, in his day, they searched you for guns and knives on the way in, and if you didn't have any, they gave you some.

"I would not say it was a tough school, but they did appoint their own coroner."

At the time Stephen Kay, the Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council then cabinet member for education, in the first ever coalition Cabinet excluding your party representatives, said: "I cannot understand why she has said it. I know that these comments were made in a jocular manner, but I feel on this occasion, the remarks were very ill judged. To do this on a national platform and make fun of the people she represents is not called for, and gives people the complete wrong impression of the town. Might I also add you have also in the not too distant past called for changes with local coroner!

I now await your reply.

Yours sincerely

I HAVE WITHELD THE NAME AND ADDRESS.

Smell of the Tannery

2009-05-09T01:57:00.000-07:00

Looks like the smell of the tannery is clinging...

Baubles, bangles and wall ornaments

A visitor destination of regional importance? Theyre having a laugh aren't they?

2009-05-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

Lets have a look at the council list of Goodies for Coatham as appeared on their website yesterday attached to Vera Bairds lightweight, shambolic, misleading, statement.

A new state-of-the-art leisure centre with 6 lane 25m pool, leisure pool, dance floor/performance space, 8 court sports hall, junior gym, 75 station fitness suite No mention that this should have been built long before now and not used as a carrot to dangle, because the council are borrowing the money to build it.

357 new dwellings offering a range of new homes for first-time buyers, families and retirement Now theres a visitor attraction.

New public spaces, lighting and landscaping. WOW, Lighting, Im wet with anticipation! Public spaces? Whats that? A toilet?

Combined public sector and private sector £millions investment. Whats this? This is supposed to be a list of what we are getting in the way of leisure facilities not what they are hoping to get to provide the infrastructure for the scheme. They must be trying to pad the list out or it would look terribly short.

The creation - either directly or indirectly of up to 200 new jobs. This isn't a visitor attraction and the jobs wont be permanent either.

New public house and restaurant Wacky Warehouse, Yippee! What a boon for all of the people living in the houses nearby, but its not a leisure facility and it wont turn Coatham from ordinary to extraordinary either.

LifeStyle Sports Village What on earth is that? Is this the extreme sports centre under a new name? You know the facility that they still can't get any funding for despite extending the lease of the mungle jungle for 125 years. Vera once said to us, when she was our friend, that they could give the owners of the Mungle Jungle a lease for a 1000 years and they still wouldnt be able to attract the funding. They haven't.

Health Village. As has already been revealed on this site, Steven Childs, manager in the PCT who was involved in the extremely dodgy appearance of this 5GP medical village, but who is now working in another dept of the PCT, has already told us that he understands that this is now no longer happening. CROSS IT OFF! And put it in the bin with the others.

Childrens Nursery. Hang on, this should be part of the leisure centre and listed as such. More unnecessary padding! By Paul Daniels, the councils spin doctor and ex-Gazette employee is good at his job isn't he?

But where has the Single Screen Cinema gone and the Bowling Alley and the Extreme Sports Centre and the open air performance area and the parade of shops and the Bingo Hall and the iconic tower and most of all, where has the visitor centre gone?

Thats right, down the pan.

Now lets base ourselves in REALITY. Lets take out the rubbish and spin and show the true list of what the Coatham Enclosure leisure development, the councils flagship, the renaissance for Redcar, the visitor destination of regional importance will really include.

1.A new state-of-the-art leisure centre with 6 lane 25m pool, leisure pool, dance floor/performance space, 8 court sports hall, junior gym, 75 station fitness suite childrens nursery.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN...WELCOME TO THE COATHAM ENCLOSURE LEISURE DEVELOPMENT !

A pool and leisure centre that you could find anywhere and most importantly to the powers that be, 357 Persimmon Homes. It's just a coastal housing estate with a baths. That the public are paying for.

What have we been telling you all for five years?

The more you look, the more the desperation shows...

2009-05-08T06:20:00.000-07:00

Lets have a look at Vera Bairds shambolic Statement (6th May 2009) on the Councils website, and pull it to bits.

"I know that most Redcar people support the Coatham Links development and want it to start as soon as possible. How does she know that? When has any meaningful consultation been done with the people in this town? Her own Labour council totally rubbished the Coatham consultation carried out under the old coalition, in the press and there's been no more done since then. What she means is every sane person in the town wants leisure facilities, including us, but what she isn't saying is that the majority of people dont want the houses, which we dont have to have because the council are borrowing the money to build the pool and replacement leisure centre.

I have had doubts in the past about the number of houses to be built there, versus the amount of leisure facilities. But things like the fantastic new "MyPlace" seafront youth centre have tipped the balance. The "MyPlace" youth centre she refers to is a great achievement by the youth of this town. But what Ms Baird omits to tell people is that it isn't even part of the Coatham Plan, it hasn't got planning permission, it has had no public consultation whatsoever, and it contains a drugs counselling centre that they are trying to play down by not mentioning in their press releases. Most of all, what they are not telling people is that they are desperately trying to include this youth and drugs counselling centre in the Coatham Scheme on the site of the visitor centre, because the visitor centre which was supposed to be the attraction that would make the Coatham Scheme a visitor destination of regional importance, is no longer happening. If you have a look at the list on the website of what the council are saying the scheme will bring, the MyPlace youth centre isn't even listed, because it's not part of the scheme!

Coatham Links should be a great boost to Redcar, bringing more new people here and giving us all a leisure centre, swimming pool and many more facilities of which we can feel proud. Bringing more people here? What does she mean by that? That people living in another 359 houses will turn our towns ecconomy around? If houses regenerated then our town would be booming. It isn't and it hasn't been long before the recession, even though thousands of houses have been built in the town. The pool we can have any time. It isn't dependent on houses being built because the council want to borrow over ten million pounds to build it. As for many more facilities, have a look at the councils list, apart from the pool, there aren't any.

The political parties on Redcar council oppose each other as they should in the interests of democracy, and if anything had been done wrong as this development evolved one political party or another would certainly have said so. There are loads of things wrong with the Coatham Scheme that shocked everybody at the Parliamentary screening, but nothing has been done about them because they have all allowed certain officers to get away with the abuses that they have carried out. But they are all, to a member, committed to Coatham being built as speedily as possible, in the interests of the people of the Borough.

"A very small group of protestors have got attention over the years. Oh not this old chestnut again. Sheelagh Clarke in 2006 said in the Gazette that when you get over 400 people at a public meeting then you cant dismiss it as a few hotheads. Vera herself has already said on TFM that there are many people opposing the scheme and who have concerns. She herself praised us in two specially prepared newsletters which we put out on her behalf. How many faces has she got? Ah but thats right, of course, she said those things and so did they, when the Labour group were in opposition.

They have made serious allegations against the council and recently against me but these are untrue. No they aren't they are all very true and thats why there have been no writs for libel issued and no injunction stopping the film being shown.

They showed the MP for Scarborough, Robert Goodwill, an edited version of their protest film "Coatham - A Common Concern" to persuade him to show it in Parliament and then yesterday, having obtained his consent, showed in Parliament a longer version of the film that he had not seen that contains the nasty allegations nasty allegations? She would say that because they are made against her and the rotten council that shes trying desperately to protect. and which he has totally disowned. He backed out because you had been putting him under pressure right up until the film was shown. Mr Goodwill had been made aware of all the facts, but it became too hot to handle for him when he realised just how bad things are here. Tell you what Vera, come and see the film and watch the PPC for East Cleveland and South Middlesbrough Pual Bristows reaction to having seen the film and after having taken part in the debate. The things that he says and the concerns that he has certainly aren't consistent with a Perspective Parliamentary Candidate and an MP who he says invited him there, that are in the process of retracting their support? So how much pressure did you finally put on Mr Goodwill to pull out? The same amount as you put on a Church Warden in his sixties?

"The long legal campaign waged by these few, Oh no, the marginalising tactic coming into play again! There were three hundred people in the Church last night, two hundred the night before and over a hundred three weeks ago, from across the borough, at a non-public, group meeting where we discussed what we were going to do. How many people do you get at your meetings Vera? Thousands I suppose, I bet a majority attend those meeting don't they?

protesters paid for through legal aid, what a shame that the Solicitor General doesn't advocate the little man on the street using the democratic, legal processes available to him, in order to stand up and speak out against the might of rotten councils. What does she want? A dictatorship? YOU WILL OBEY, FOUR LEGS GOOD TWO LEGS BAD.- has also held up this much needed, Who needs the houses? Persimmon? and much desired community development. "I look forward to sitting by the new pool with you - as soon as we can."

We couldn't agree more Vera, but please tell us all why we haven't had a pool built before now when its construction has never been dependent on the houses being built because the council, you know the one thats been downgraded, IS BORROWING THE MONEY AND PUTTING PEOPLES COUNCIL TAX UP, TO BUILD ONE.

Something that you said in Charles Davis' house in front of five other people, you could never support.

Found it!

2009-05-08T00:51:00.001-07:00

Here is Mr Robert Goodwills original staement from November 2007. We had worked on it jointly. I drafted something and he made the slight ammendments to it ( In blue ). I have copied and pasted the text taken from the email. It starts with my email to him and he replies to me offering his suggested changes.

And all of this was all done without seeing the film, in any form? So why is he complaining so badly now and retracting his support, because of seven minutes of extra footage that he had already been informed about the content of?

This is a copy of that email...

Here are my suggested changes

Robert

Robert Goodwill MP for Scarborough & Whitby Shadow Transport Minister House of Commons London SW1A 0AA p: 020 7219 8268 f: 020 7219 8108

From: Christopher McGlade Sent: 27 November 2007 13:02To: GOODWILL, RobertSubject: Statement
Dear Mr Goodwill,

I have slightly tweaked the statement that you gave me for our press release over the phone last night, to read as it appears below. Is this ok? I am also going to phone Julie Moody ( someone he wanted to put us in touch with in East Cleveland regarding this matter ) later on this afternoon and speak with her about the situation here in Redcar and Cleveland.
The thing that a lot of people are disappointed with, no matter what their political persuasion may be, is the lack of leadership from our MP's regarding this issue.

Both Vera Baird and Ashok Kumar have been presented with information about the behaviour and actions of this council, in particular its officers and yet neither of them have done or said anything about it. In 2005 if I remember correctly, I went to see Ashok. I brought to his attention what information we had then. He asked me outright if I believed the council to be corrupt and I told him that I did, but he did nothing. Vera Baird was given the dossier that the ex-barrister compiled, that we sent to you a couple of days ago and she was also given all of the information about the PCT and the conflict of interests between the Chief Executive of the council and his wife who was a board member of the PCT, as well as information about some £360,000+ going 'astray' in the PCT and she too has done nothing.

People are wondering after the Private Eye article, why they have made no comment? Would you do the same?
We feel terribly let down and saddened that we feel like we cannot go to our own MP's for help, but thats how a lot of people are feeling, staunch Labour people too and thats just not acceptable.

The statement is as follows.

Robert Goodwill MP for Scarborough and Whitby, who responded to the concerns of one of his constituents about the situation in Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council said, "Following the Private Eye article and after having seen a large amount of supporting documentation there are a number of significant questions that officers of the council have not answered and seemingly are not answering. If they cannot clarify the issues that have been raised then surely the only way forward is to have a full, independent, investigation".

Could you let me know as soon as you can if this is fine? Thankyou very much for all your help and patience,

Peace,

Chris.

I've just had a thought...

2009-05-08T00:35:00.000-07:00

I have just had a thought...Mr Robert Goodwill, out of the blue and against the flow of the meeting on Tuesday, decided to retract his support for our campaign because he said that we included some extra footage in the version of our film that was screened at Parliament, that had not been included in the preview that he had had in his office in Scarborough?

But when he was going to show the film the first time in Parliament 18 months ago, before Vera Baird threatened him and stopped him from showing the film and calling for an independent investigation which he said that he had to do because if he didn't "then he would be neglecting his duty", he had the room booked, the invitations ready to go out and the draft statement calling for the independent investigation was ready to go and guess what?

He hadn't seen any version of the film whatsoever?

He had arranged the screening and the calling for an independent investigation, based purely upon the facts, backed up by the documents, that we had shown him.

It's like I said to him yesterday in an email,

"if I was lying, if the things that our group were saying were untrue, then do you seriously think that I would dare come to Parliament, Vera Bairds manor was the term that I used, and speak those untruths in the Seat of Democracy in our Country about the mighty Solicitor General of this country and the council which lies within her constituency? The answer now is the same as it was then".

Of course I wouldn't.

Well Come on then...What are you waiting for?

2009-05-07T15:47:00.000-07:00

Heres a link to an article on the councils website.
http://www.redcar-cleveland.gov.uk/main.nsf/Web+Full+List/D1D712312AA1E5F180257317004500D0?OpenDocument

I found out about this today. I told a packed Coatham Church tonight. The Church Warden informed me that there was between 280 and 300 people in the Church. So much for Vera's statement about a small number of people. That brings the total to approximately 500 people in two nights.

To be honest I suspected that this would happen on Tuesday when Mr Goodwill told everyone at the Parliamentary screening, that Vera Baird had tried, once again, to put pressure on him to not show the film in Parliament right up to it being shown. He read the email that he said she had sent to him on Saturday 2nd of May 2009. The thing is that it is easy for Mr Goodwill to say the things he is now, but in truth, the screening ended after the people in attendance, including Mr Goodwill, were debating what should be done next?

The debate was left with Mr Goodwill saying that we should make moves to get hold of the secret barristers opinion and the development agreement for Coatham which was signed by council officers two days before the local elections and two weeks before G.ON.E had decided whether or not to call it in in 2007. That's how the meeting was left.

Whilst Mr Goodwill remonstrated during the meeting that there was an extra seven minutes of the film which he had not seen, what he is not saying, is that all of the facts which were contained within that 42 minute film including the other seven minutes, had already been given to him before hand. None of it was new to him and he had been made aware of it all on previous occasions. I even sent him a copy of the newsletter that we have just put out asking if Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council was corrupt and he raised no objection to it whatsoever.

What throws up more questions about this sudden retraction, is that an interview that was done with the PPC for Ashok Kumars ward and which is now part of the film, reflects the true flavour of the debate that followed the screening, and not Mr Goodwills new stance at all? The man in question clearly has serious concerns and clearly states that serious questions have to be asked. He mentions Robert Goodwill in the interview too and makes no mention of him pulling his support.

So we have to ask ourselves what has really happened between Tuesday afternoon after the screening and Wednesday, for Mr Goodwill to change his mind? He based his decision to show the film in Parliament not just on the film that was previewed, which was virtually the same as the one shown in Parliament, but also on all of the other facts that we had brought to his attention over an 18 month period, including an email which showed that Vera Baird, Labour MP, had "persuaded" both Rachel and I to stand in the local elections in 2007 as independents against Labour candidates. Something that he said she should be thrown out of the party for.

I had already sent Vera Baird an email today after Rachel received Mr Goodwills email, but below is another that I sent earlier when I saw her hypocritical statements on the councils website.

Dear Ms Baird,

It's relatively easy to put pressure on another MP who is obviously mindful that you had already threatened him, 18 months ago, to not show the film and to not call for an independent investigation. You had sent him an email last Saturday trying to put pressure on him to not allow the film to be shown. It's even easier trying to intimidate and bully a Church Warden into not showing the film in Coatham Church, which thankfully, he resisted because he could see through your threats for what they were.

But where is the substance in any of the things that you have said in the article that appears on the councils website? For instance, instead of making comments in press comments, why don't you and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council do something really radical if what we have said in our newsletter and film is so libelous?

And take us to court.

Thats the real proof of the councils innocence, the council that you appear, for some reason, to want to protect?

You seem to want to protect them even though they have had officers found in national publications to have supressed audit commission reports and replaced them with others, changed minutes of meetings, been found to have been deliberately disingenuous, guilty of sharp practise, found to have concealed the truth, changed EA planning conditions, brought the council into disrepute, had them downgraded to a two star authority and acted unlawfully.

Talking about unlawful, if you did take us to court, then I could call you and George Dunning as witnesses and perhaps then under oath, you could both tell me why, even though you stated publicly in December 2007 that you had known at the time of the Coatham Planning application that you had both known all along how wrong the planning process was, the Labour council still defended a judicial review that you, in your own words, had known all along was unlawful?

Are councils supposed to spend public money defending things that they know to be unlawful?

You could also possibly tell me why, after your own Labour leader called for the investigation of the now ex-Chief Executive Colin Moore twice, did neither George or you actually have him investigated when Labour came to power? Preferring to let him leave the council on a sickness ticket with a glowing appraisal in the press, a two year enhanced pay deal and massive pension that was worth £360,000? More than this could you tell me why, when Mr Moore turned up working for Cumbria council just two or three months later, did neither you or George Dunning do anything to reclaim the public money that had been given to him from Redcar and Cleveland in his enhanced pay deal and pension?

These are just a couple of things that we have been trying to get out into the wider public domain and answers to for some time. Along with the fact that this council and Persimmon homes were involved together over the issue of Coatham a year before the scheme was advertised as a leisure scheme. Thats a bit odd? Especially when the scheme was advertised as a leisure scheme, leisure developers expressed interest only to be ignored in favour of Persimmon Homes PLC who were a house builder and who haven't signed a section 106 agreement with the council to provide any leisure facilities whatsoever?

So come on Vera, instead of blustering on the councils website, or threatening other MP's and Church Wardens, take us to court and lets get it all out in the open. It will be so much better than trying to threaten people into distancing themselves from a film that you haven't seen yourself.

Peace,

Chris Mcglade and the Friends Of Coatham Common

Well that was like shelling peas. If that's the best that you can do, I'd resign now.

2009-05-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

Hey, I got in from a packed Coatham Church where 200 people watched our film Coatham a Common concern and found this posting on Cllr Chris Abbotts blogsite. COATHAM LINKS - PUTTING THE INTERESTS OF THE BOROUGH FIRST I have answered every untrue and half truth telling point that he has made, in blue. What an absolutely desperate load of old rubbish from a councillor and a council who are trying everything that they can in order to counter the truth that has been printed and spoken and filmed about the Coatham scheme and the behaviour of officers and councillors alike.

I would also like to point out, that our MP Vera Baird QC MP, Solicitor General of this country, phoned the Dean of Coatham Church who then got the Church Warden to phone her and tried to frighten the elderly warden, into not allowing us to show our film in the Church tonight.

What an absolute Disgrace. The film was still shown to a full church.

Here is Councillor Abbotts ridiculous posting that says absolutely nothing and my responses to it.

The leaders of all the political groups on Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council have joined forces in condemning the tactics being used by a minority of protestors opposed to the Coatham Links re-development project. What tactics are those Mr Abbott? Telling the public the truth about this scheme, the behaviour of certain officers of this council and the fact that the council were downgraded to a two star authority because of things that happened when your old Lib/dem Coalition were in power?

This follows the distribution of a leaflet and production and screening of a film by protestors. Condemn all you like Mr Abbott, you're bound to because truth always hurts, especially politicians, but where was the libel writ denying all of the things that the leaflet contained or the injunction to stop it being delivered or the film being shown? Ah thats right, there wasn't one.

In a joint statement, Cllr George Dunning, Leader of the Labour Group, Cllr Chris Abbott, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, Cllr Valerie Halton, Leader of the Conservative Group, and Cllr Steve Kay, Leader of the East Cleveland Independent Group, said: “Right across the political spectrum and in the seven years covering three different administrations, as a Council we have always put the needs of the Borough first in promoting the Coatham Links re-development project. Put the needs of the Borough first? Have they? Is that why for five years you have all lied to people in the Borough telling them that they had to have the houses in order to have the leisure, when in reality, youre borrowing over ten million pounds to build the only leisure facility that is being provided and none of the other leisure facilities are happening?

Is that why the Labour group damned the coalition for their handling of the scheme before the 07 elections claiming that they had let everyone down over Coatham, that it should be taken back to the drawing board and that the planning process, that you pushed through during Purdah, was tainted?

Is that why Conservative leader Valerie Halton blamed the Labour leader George Dunning in 2007 in the letters page of the Gazette over Coatham and in return he blamed her for being a part of a coalition that signed the Coatham development agreement? Why should you blame someone for signing something that was so beneficial to the borough?
Not only that, the Labour MP called it botched and on Radio stated that it was nothing more than a housing estate that was and I quote a "disaster". When was inflicting a disaster upon the borough ever considered to have been putting the needs of the borough first? When was a disaster ever considered to be good for the borough?

“The Coatham Links re-development project will deliver a massive improvement in the sports and leisure facilities available within the Borough, No it wont, it will provide a pool in Redcar that should have been built years ago and replace a leisure centre that we already have. What it wont provide or replace, is a music venue in the Coatham Bowl, that lots of people love and which the councils own consultants Nathaniel Lichfield stated in 2006, was one of the only three visitor attractions, along with the race course and Coatham beach, in the town. In the borough Mr Abbott or Redcar? Because after all said and done there are no leisure facilities whatsoever in the principal town in this borough.

Including a new competition-level swimming complex, a dance floor, indoor and outdoor sports facilities, These are all crammed into the new leisure centre that is being paid for with borrowed money though, because all of the other leisure facilities have bitten the dust and a space for the performing arts alongside a further development following the announcement of a £5millon Big Lottery Funded world-class youth, arts and media facility.Mr Abbott why haven't you told people that this youth, media and arts centre also contains a drug counselling centre? This fact has been in one of the free local papers? Why haven't you told people that it isnt even part of the Coatham Planning application, that it hasn't had any public consultation whatsoever and most of all, it has never been a part of the Coatham scheme and is only being touted as such now because it is replacing the, at the last count, £14,000,000 visitor centre with iconic tower! The visitor centre that the council lied to the High Court about when they said that it was definitely happening when it isn't. Since when was a youth and drugs couselling centre ever regarded as an adequeate replacement for a leisure facility that was going to make the Coatham scheme a visitor centre of regional importance? Thats right, never.

“The protestors’ allegations have now been investigated by the Police, LIE. We haven't been to Cleveland Police with any of our allegations because they have shown massive bias towards the council, like representing your old buddy councillor Dave Fitzpatrick over a civil issue, by spending sx months trying to fit a crime to me posting the truth on my blogsite when I had committed no crime Courts, LIE. Courts don't investigate possible corruption. Audit Commission, LIE. Because they actually acted on the dossier that we gave them and acted on the five and a half hour meeting that we had with them and downgraded the council as a result. the local Member of Parliament LIE. shes never investigated anything on our behalf regarding the shameful behaviour of elements of this council either. All she has done is stop an independent investigation being called for 18 months ago by a neighbouring MP and then ask the council to conduct an internal investigation to be headed by the ex-finance officer who featured three times in Private Eye for his less than credible behaviour. and the Ombudsman LIE. The ombudsman have never investigated anything on our behalf infact they used a flimsy excuse to get out of investigating the fact that the council and Persimmon were involved in Coatham together a year before the scheme was even advertised as a leisure development. However, they did investigate the council and in 2006 and 2007, when once again the Lib/dem coalition were in power, the Ombudsman did find the council guilty of maladministration.–

all of which has confirmed that the Council has done nothing wrong. Nothing wrong? Guilty of maladministration, dowgraded to a two star authority, found to be financially negligent, proven to have supressed a financial audit report, Nothing wrong? Aye okay then.

Given this, a minority of protestors Minority? Is this why there were 200 people in Coatham church tonight watching a movie that has been made about this most rotten council, 5 years after the campaign for the truth about Coatham began? When was the last time any political party in this area had 200 people at a meeting, ever?

has decided to promote a fantastical conspiracy theory which is untrue. Untrue? Is this why no legal action has ever been taken about any of the things that have been said by us in five years?

We urge the public not to be taken in. So do we, by the lies of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

“All that has ever motivated all of us at the Council is to do what is best for the Borough. No it isn't. Youre all motivated by your own selfishness. Youre all two faced hypocrites who can see your power base slipping away and the truth about the actions of officers supposedly under your control, being exposed for exactly what they are.

We do have our political differences but on this issue we are all in agreement Well you will be because youre all as guilty as sin of letting the people of this area down massively and turning a blind eye to all the things that have taken place!

the re-development project at Coatham Links is an opportunity to provide new facilities and benefits to the Borough and, as a Council, we are determined to deliver this to our residents. Once again, no its not. Its an opportunity to deliver another 359 homes built on a zone three high flood risk area along with a baths that is being provided with millions of pounds of borrowed money that the public will have to pay back through their council tax. A baths that we don't have to have any houses to have and that should have been provided long before now, but hasn't been, because this council have wanted to use it as a way of falsely getting people to go along with our coastline being blighted with housing.

“Throughout the development of the Coatham Links project, across all political parties, we have taken much time to listen to both supporters of, and objectors to, the scheme - LIE. You have never listened to the objectors to the scheme ever. You ignored a 10,000 signature petition against the Coatham scheme, but listened to a 6000 signature petition against the windfarm? You ignored over 2000 objections to the Coatham planning application, but listened to approximately 157 objections to the building of houses in Eston? You listened to objections about lamposts that were erected outside, you guessed it, THE MP'S HOUSE, but you ignored hundreds of people who have been barricaded into their homes as a result of fences being erected around the Common? Fences that are guarding and doing nothing and which to date have cost the tax payer over £48,000

as have our hard-working Council officers. Hard working council officers? Are these the officers that give replies to Freedom of information requests that contain, according to the Information Commissioners office and I quote, "inconsistencies"?
Are these the officers who have been found in so many tribunals as changing their evidence overnight, being deliberately disingenuous, bullying, intimidating, concealing the truth, acting illegally, being guilty of sharp practise and bringing the council into disrepute,?
Or are these the the officers who supressed an audit report that showed that we werent a four star authority at all, who have altered and changed minutes of meetings, changed an EA planning condition without consent or consultation to suit Persimmon Homes, gave themselves extra paid holidays that weren't brought before the council until after they had been taken or exceeded their spending limits under delegated authority by tens of thousands of pounds? Aye they've been hard at work alright, pulling the wool over everyones eyes!

We are convinced that the scheme is the right thing for our Borough and that it is widely supported. Well you have to say that dont you? What else can you say when everythings gone to pot? You should have a word with the MP, shes already called it a disaster publicly.

The latest tactics by a minority of protestors are a sad reflection on the way some people behave if they don’t get their own way - to accuse innocent people of wrongdoing because you can’t win the argument on merit is extremely reprehensible. Youre using the word Minority again Mr Abbott? Thats the third or fourth time you've used it in this posting? Sounds like you're desperate to portray to the public, the image of this campaign being the handywork of just a few, desperate people, Isn't that called spin? Some would call it propaganda, but I don't like that word it always reminds me of the Nazis in the last war.

But far from being a small group we have become an ever growing movement of people from across the entire borough from South Bank to East Cleveland, all dedicated to exposing what is going on and what has gone on within Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.

Also, I'd use the word innocent very carefully Mr Abbott and as for wrong doing? The documents and paper work are all there. Would you like me to bring you the Scanlon tribunal report, the Whittaker Tribunal report, the Tait Tribunal report, or the tribunal report of the dinner lady who refused to accept the paltry £5,000 approximately that the council encouraged her and dozens of other lowly paid dinner ladies, to take. To then be awarded what she was really entitled to THIRTY TWO THOUSAND POUNDS, by an employment tribunal!
A story that didn't appear in council literature but strangely did find it's way onto the front page of the Guardian newspaper?

Perhaps I should give you both final financial audit reports for you to read? The one senior officers supressed and the one it was replaced with? Maybe you should see some old Gazettes where George Dunning, your new buddy, called for Colin Moores investigation twice or even the recent Gazette where you called for an independent investigation yourself? Wrongdoing isn't an accusation Mr Abbott, it's documented fact already in the public domain.

“But the protestors should know that as a united Council on this project we are not going to be turned away from doing the right thing by this hateful behaviour. Hateful behaviour? Is that like when you started an untrue smear campaign against me that I took you to the Standards Board for when you said untruthfully said that I was a member of the BNP? Or like when one of your Libdem councillors made STILL UNSUBSTANTIATED claims that she had been spat at in the street by the lead protestor? Or like when according to the police, someone from the council sent me, Mike Findley and Mary Lanigan vile hate mail through the post? Now thats hateful, don't you agree? Not exposing the unlawful, unconstitutional, deceitful, illegal behaviour of individuals within this council.

We are going to continue to put the needs of the Borough first - because it’s the right thing to do.” What I'll say in response to that Mr Abbott is this.

You have spent a full posting on your blogsite trying to extol the virtues of a scheme that has been branded a disaster by our own MP and castigating ordinary people who are exposing the truth about this scheme and the council. You have lied in your posting which I have easily proved. You haven't even attempted to deny the things that we have said in our newsletter, because they are all documented fact. I'll tell you what Mr Abbott, and this goes for all your party leader pals, if what we have said is untrue, libellous or we have been lying, then take us to court and disprove the things that we have said. Either that or welcome a full, independent, investigation into all apects of the Coatham scheme and the wider actions of the council, so that our questions can be answered. Either put up or shut up.

The council should know that their days of lying to the public, of covering up the behaviour and actions of the guilty, of wasting millions of pounds of public money, of behaving in a way that the Serious Fraud office have said in a letter pertains to corruption and of getting away with it all scott free, ARE OVER. The public are waking up to what has taken place within our council and to all that you and everyone else have allowed to happen and go uninvestigated and we aim to have everything independently investigated from the issue of Coatham to every other dodgy deal that this council has been involved with...Because that's the right thing to do.

And on that Mr Abbott, you have our word.

Posted by Chris and Glynis Abbott at 7:10 PM
http://chrisandglynisabbott.blogspot.com/

hasEML = false;

We had our voice...

2009-05-06T04:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had what I was going to say in the Houses of Parliament posted on this site at 10.20am approximately. We went to Parliament to show our film and to say what we had to say in the Seat of Democracy in this Country.

As I pointed out yesterday in the Houses of Parliament, all of the things that are featured in the film are backed up with the relevant documentation or with signed witness statements. As I pointed out yesterday, we are prepared to stand up and say the same things and provide the same facts, documents and witness statements, in any court of law in this country. As I pointed out yesterday, would we, as normal people, dare to go to the Houses of Parliament and not tell the truth?

Because of the courage of Mr Robert Goodwill MP for Scarborough and Whitby, we were able to show the film and discuss with the twenty or so people who filled House of Commons room B of 1 Parliament Road, the terrible situation that we have here in Redcar and Cleveland. The audience included Mr Goodwill and the PPC for the constituency of East Cleveland and South Middlesbrough Paul Bristow, and also included solicitors from the Environmental Law Foundation and interested councillors from Doncaster among others.

One of the councillors from Doncaster recently appeared on Channel 4 news because of an audit report that officers in their council had supressed. They had attended because they were interested in the fact that Dr Joan Rees, someone who worked as one of the most senior officers here in Redcar and Cleveland, who had been involved heavily in the Coatham Development, had also been involved in doing a report that gave a clean bill of health to a blood stock farm in Doncaster, that like Coatham, has massive questions hanging over it.

The councillors from Doncaster, who knew all about the Donnygate scandal, told us after seeing the film and listening to the debate, that "we had massive problems up here". They told us that we had to be wary when asking for independent investigations because they were sometimes not as independent as they seemed.

At this, a retired barrister pointed out that the issue of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council being involved with Persimmon homes through doing reports together into the gross housing requirements of the borough, including Coatham, and through them employing the same solicitors to do surveys about the contaminated land in Coatham, a year before Coatham development was even advertised as a leisure development and for Persimmon to then be awarded the contract for the Coatham development without them signing a 106 agreement that committed them to providing any leisure at all, when leisure developers had answered the advertisement and had been ignored, was a case for the Serious Fraud Office.

He then went onto say, but how could an independent investigation be carried out by the Serious Fraud Office when ultimately they have to answer to the Solicitor General Vera Baird and as was pointed out, she had already threatened Mr Goodwill into not calling for an independent investigation 18 months ago and into not showing the film.

Infact yesterday, Mr Goodwill read out another email that Vera Baird had sent to him as late as Saturday the 2nd of May, just three days before the screening, trying to stop him showing the film. She also said that she had had reservations about the scheme but they had been satisfied now that the Labour council were adding a youth centre to the scheme.

At this point I told Mr Goodwill that the youth and media centre that she was referring to, also comprised a drugs counselling centre and Vera Baird, once again, was only telling half a story. It was not part of the Coatham Planning Application, it had had no public consultation whatsoever and had no planning permission either and so once again, our MP and Solicitor General of the country, hadn't told him the truth. I also pointed out to him, that this youth and drugs couselling centre was to occupy the site of a fourteen million pound visitor centre that isn't now happening but had been touted as the main leisure ingredient of the Coatham Leisure scheme. It was something that according to the council was going to supposedly make the Coatham scheme a visitor destination of regional importance. It was something that the council had told High Courts and Courts of appeal was going to be happening even though council officer Alan Logan had told a magistrates court in Middlesbrough previous to that, that it wasn't. More than this, it was something that the now ex-CEO Colin Moore had said in 2006, the council had all of the funding for?

It came out in the discussion that followed the film, that it was essential for the council to show, in the interests of transparency and openness, the barristers opinion and the development agreement for Coatham, which was signed two weeks before G.O.N.E had even decided whether or not to call it in. The issue of the lack of transparency and openness was discussed at length. For a council to enter into an insurance policy with a developer, an insurance policy that protected them against THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SCHEME BECOMING PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE had nothing to do with commercial sensitivity, but everything to do with paranoia on behalf of the council and Persimmon homes. As was stated yesterday, how many times have you heard of councils insuring themselves against the truth being known. And it was suggested that an independent inquiry be called for. I personally asked Mr Goodwill to ask questions about this disaster to quote Vera Baird, in the House of Commons.

Another man said that if the council have nothing to hide, then why be worried about being investigated independently?

The process of getting the independent investigation into this scheme and this council has begun. The film speaks for itself. Mr Goodwill knows that what is going on here is not right and as Paul Bristow said, as an ex councillor himself, he just could not believe that our council had done what they had done and were still doing.

We spoke yesterday even though Vera Baird, once again, tried to stop that and tried to muddy the waters. We have been in discussions with national press people and we now aim to do all that we can, to ensure that our voice was properly heard and that what has gone here is exposed nationally and investigated thoroughly.

The time for investigation has arrived.

2009-05-05T02:29:00.000-07:00

As someone who pays his council tax in Redcar and Cleveland , I would like to begin by thanking Mr Robert Goodwill MP for Scarborough and Whitby , for having the courage to make the decision to intervene in the affairs of a local authority in another MP’s constituency.

We have come here to let the facts about the Coatham development and the behaviour of our local authority, be known in the seat of democracy in our country, because our own political establishment have tried to keep the truth away from the public. We have come here to be heard because those in authority where we live have ignored us and told us lies. We have come here today because we believe the Coatham Development and the local authority in Redcar and Cleveland to be corrupted and as a result of this we have come here to join with Mr Goodwill in calling for an independent investigation into all aspects of the Coatham scheme and the Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, at the very highest level that we can.

There are some who may have winced at me using the word corrupted, but it has been used so many times already and not just by us, regarding the mess known as Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and the Coatham Enclosure Development. It was used by MP for East Cleveland and Middlesbrough South Ashok Kumar, in 2005. After a meeting with him in his constituency office in Guisborough, the last question he asked me was “did we believe there to be corruption within the council?” Based upon the facts we had at that time, I said yes.

The Serious Fraud Office, based on the facts that we provided them with about this scheme have stated in a letter that the things that we have brought to their attention “Pertain to corruption” and “should be investigated by the police”.

When we met with the Corporate Assesor from the Audit Commission Mr Mike Newbury last May, the final question that he asked, after we had shown him the documents that we had, was “did we believe there to be a corrupt relationship existing between the council and Persimmon Homes?” We said that we did.

These people have all used the word corruption and asked the same question, as senior Government officers and parts of public service bodies. As intelligent people experienced in Government both local and National, would they ask this question if they were not thinking it themselves?

The film that you are about to see demonstrates clearly the facts about the Coatham Scheme and Redcar and Cleveland Borough council and the way that they, and Vera Baird QC MP, have betrayed the public of Redcar and Cleveland. But because of the massive step that Mr Goodwill has taken in intervening in Redcar and Cleveland , out of respect for him and his undertaking, I would like to outline our decision to approach him.

Firstly, he is my partners MP. She has had a business in Redcar for over twenty years that she pays business rates to Redcar and Cleveland Borough for. She owns properties in Redcar that she pays council tax for. It is her right to go down any avenue that she feels is necessary, in order to ensure that the local authority that she pays rates and council tax to, is behaving properly.

There are going to be those who will say “why haven’t you gone to the council with your complaints” Our response to that is what is the point?

What is the point of going to the council when they have openly and wrongly smeared us and lied about us? The have called us anarchists, a rabble, they have said that we are lying. The now ex-CEO Colin Moore said in a letter to Vera Baird that I had acted violently towards a female councilor when I had not. Still unsubstantiated claims, that we have spat at Councilors in the street and sent them threatening letters and emails have been made by councilors. We have had requests for the now ex-CEO Colin Moore and the now ex-Finance officer Ray Richardson to be investigated, swept under the carpet by the council telling us that we had to complain to the now ex-CEO and Finance officer themselves? We have gone to the Standards Board on many occasions with our complaints but they, no matter how damning the case against the councilor in question is, always come down on the side of the council. Even when councilors, Chris Abbott and Dave Fitzpatrick started an untrue smear campaign against me that I was a member of the BNP, the standards board did nothing, preferring to accept the councils monitoring Officers explanation that it was all just political banter in the run up to the General Election that I stood in in 2005 as an independent.

When councilors George Dunning and Mark Hannon deliberately failed to tell the truth in the press regarding the village green issue, something that was picked up on by our own solicitor Andrew Lockley from Irwin Mitchell, the councils’ legal officer Richard Frankland, covered for them by twisting and turning and prevaricating on their behalf under the FOI act.

When ex-CEO Colin Moore and ex-finance officer Ray Richardson were found in tribunal after tribunal as having been deliberately disingenuous, changed their evidence overnight, concealed the truth, acted illegally, been guilty of sharp practice the council praised them as officers of high quality and awarded them pay rises. When senior Officer Simon Dale had been described in the Whittaker Employment Tribunal as lying and basically bringing the council down into disrepute, he was defended in the press by the head of the police committee, councilor Dave McCluckie? Within Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council there is a culture of cronyism and a culture of officers and members watching and protecting, each others backs.

This is why we have not gone to our own council.

There are those who will then ask, “well why haven’t you gone to The Cleveland Police?” Our response to that is also what is the point?

What is the point when I have had death threats that Cleveland police have done absolutely nothing about. When I have had hateful text messages sent to me via my partners mobile phone that the police said would be impossible to investigate. When I have had hate mail sent to my home through the post telling me basically to back off if I knew what was good for me. Saying sick things about the health of an independent Councilor, Mike Findley, who is suffering with MND and who supported our campaign. Hate mail that matched hate mail already sent to Mike and another Independent councilor Mary Lanigan, that had been left in their pigeon holes within the councils offices. Hate mail that Seargent Mandy Savery told me in front of five other people in April 2006, the police knew had come from within the council. But despite this, Cleveland police did nothing. Infact, when my friends who had touched the letter had their prints eliminated from the investigation because they did not match those found on the letter and the only course open to Cleveland Police, after I had complained to the IPCC, was to investigate the council, I was informed on December 22nd 2006, in Guisborough Police Station, that the police and the CPS did not then regard the issue of the hate mail that I had received ,as being a crime anymore and that they did not think the letter had come from the council?

But to offset this complete lack of action by Cleveland Police Force regarding things that I have had to suffer, we have had a situation in Redcar and Cleveland where two young men were investigated by Cleveland Police at the insistence of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, for thirteen weeks, they were then arrested and detained for twelve hours, had their computers and mobile phones confiscated and DNA and fingerprints taken and all for the terrible crime of fly posting.

Strangely posters that accused certain members of the council and the now ex-CEO Colin Moore of being corrupt.

What happened to the two young men? They were released after twelve hours. No charges were ever brought against them despite the massive investigation and the only thing that the police ever suggested to them was to attend a meeting with the now ex-CEO to basically get a dressing down.

As if this isn’t bad enough, after I had posted the truth on my blogsite about councilor Dave Fitzpatrick being caught on CCTV camera swinging a chain around outside his public house in a threatening manner, after a young man had been assaulted in councilor Fitzpatricks pub just prior to that, Cleveland Police then spent, at the request of councilor Fitzpatrick, six months trying to fit a crime to me posting on my blogsite when no crime either criminally or civilly had been committed. The Cleveland police force spent six months from January to June 2007, representing a councilor from Redcar and Cleveland over a civil issue and spent six months trying to conjure up a crime in order to silence me. They then called me in to the police station in order to try and intimidate me into silence further, in front of my solicitor and on tape I told them that they were going to have to take me to court where I would tell all that I knew in a British Court . No action was ever taken. So intimidated have I felt by the threats that have been made against me and by the lack of action taken by the police, as opposed to the actions that they have taken on behalf of the council, as a way of protecting myself, I have sent letters to four different people in this country stating that if anything ever happens to me, then they should start by looking at a list of people that I have provided them with.

This is why we have not gone to our own Cleveland Police Force. I have gone to South Yorkshire Police force and I have spoken to a detective there in the economic crime squad called Gordon Simmonite, who I provided all of the facts that we had at that time and he told me that he knew that there was definitely something wrong within the council, but they couldn’t get involved because of manpower, tasking figures and a lack of resources I was told. I have gone to Sir John Stevens office and given the facts to a man there called Gavin Proudly who also told me that he knew that there was need of an investigation in Redcar and Cleveland because we had and I quote “A bad situation up here” but they couldn’t get involved because of the massive costs that would be incurred. I have spoken to my friend Keith Mulvey, a private Investigator who used to work with Sir John Stevens in the met way back when and who used to be a detective in the flying squad and he has told me, as someone who has policed at a high level, that there is something drastically wrong within our council. But because of the bias that has been shown, and because the recently re-elected Chairman of Cleveland Police Authority, Councilor Dave McCluckie, an elected councilor of this borough who was investigated and criticized following an external inquiry into what is known locally as the Hollybush affair, we have not gone to Cleveland Police.

There are those who will say, “well why haven’t you gone to your own MP Vera Baird?”

Our response to that, once again, is what is the point?

What is the point of going toVera Baird, when she courted us and supported us when the Labour group were in opposition in the council, but as soon as the Labour group were returned to control the council in May 2007, then went back on the things that she had said previously when the Labour group were in opposition. How can she call the Coatham Scheme a disaster on Radio but then still support it and push it when the scheme as it stands now, is offering even less and is even more of a disaster than when she said it on Radio in late 2006. How many MP’s would want to see a disaster inflicted upon their constituencies?

What is the point of going to Vera Baird when after the council were found in the High Court in December 2007 of being biased and pre-determined regarding the Coatham Planning process, both she and the Labour group leader publicly stated that they had both known all along that the Coatham Planning Process was wrong and that they had warned the old coalition at the time that what they were doing was wrong. The Labour group leader George Dunning even referred to the planning process at the time, as being tainted. Yet despite this, even though they both knew all along how wrong it all was, both of them supported the council spending thousands of pounds of public money defending the Judicial Review that we started against the planning process. How could they defend something that they both believed to have been unlawful? More than this, so wrong was it the council did not appeal the decision it was Persimmon that did. But when the high court decision was somehow overturned at appeal, knowing how wrong it was and after publicly saying so, Vera Baird said absolutely nothing and just let the appeal decision go unchallenged?

She has already attempted to ban this film and whitewash the things that have taken place within Redcar and Cleveland . We approached her office in the first instance in 2007 wanting help to show this film in the House, but got none. When Mr Goodwill agreed 18 months ago to show the film and agreed to call for the independent investigation into our council, Ms Baird stopped him by wrongly threatening him with the speaker. She also told him that the things that we had told him about Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council were not based in reality. How she must have been smarting when we won in the High Court and the Audit Commission downgraded the council to a two star authority based on the information that we provided. Information that we have provided her with but she has done nothing about.

Infact, when she had stopped Mr Goodwill from showing the film and calling for the independent investigation, she then called for the council to have an internal investigation into the things that we were saying and for this internal investigation to be headed by the now ex-finance officer and acting Chief Executive Ray Richardson, a man who had been featured three times in Private Eye Magazine for his less than honest behaviour already.

But as if all of these things were not enough to make us wary of Ms Baird, as if her persuading us to stand as independent councilors against Labour candidates in the local elections wasn’t enough to make us wary, in 2006 in a café in Redcar called Mrs Bridges, Myself, a teacher called Andrew Hayden and Councilor Mike Findley had a meeting with her. At this meeting I told her that the officers of the council were lying to the public over the issue of Coatham. To this she said that everyone told lies and just dismissed it as the norm. But what rocked us most was that I then said that we thought that someone had taken a bung over the issue of Coatham because the decisions that had been and were being made didn’t make any sense. She turned to me and said “Everyone takes bungs, theres nothing new in that”. Immediately Andy Hayden said in disbelief “ If you work in a tannery long enough you get used to the smell, so if I was you I’d step outside and clear your nostrils because whilst it may go on, it doesn’t make it right”.

And this is the reason why we approached Mr Robert Goodwill. Where do we go when our own MP, the Solicitor General of this country, says these things? Where do we go when the police represent the council and when the council cover each others wrong doing? Where do we go when Persimmons’ own planning application shows the existence of contaminants and land mines in the ground at Coatham, things that they have known for years but said nothing about, yet when we make it public we are smeared and ridiculed publicly for. Where do we go when despite those contaminants being two and a half times over the safe limit we are told by the HSE that there is no threat. When we bring it to their attention that the Council, Mcalpines and Persimmon have lied to them they tell us that we, and I quote, “are missing the bigger picture?”

Where do we go when the Environment agencies planning condition regarding the construction of a multi million pound sea defence in Coatham is changed by an unauthorized officer of the council and the EA tell the council in an email that they would not have agreed to this, but when we ask questions the EA tell us that the council don’t need permission to change their planning conditions? If this is the case, then why have planning conditions or an EA in the first place? If what the council has done hasn’t broken any rules and they can change planning conditions at will, then why did the EA state in an email that it is unlikely that they would have agreed to it? In another EA email it clearly states that they had to do all that they could to help the council as “a lot of money and the councils credibility were at stake here”. Since when were a lot of money or even worse, the councils credibility, ever things to be considered by the EA when addressing the issues of a zone 3 High Flood Risk area.

Where do we go to when an employee from the information commissioners office tells me that emails that the council sent me under the FOI act contain and I quote “inconsistencies” yet still accept the councils version of events as being true and correct?

Where do we go when the Local Government Ombudsman acknowledges that there is a massive conflict of interests between the council and Persimmon that pre-dates the scheme being advertised as a leisure development in 2002, but they can’t do anything about it because it wasn’t reported to them within a year of it happening.

Where do we go when the local press, keep off the front pages the real and true facts and big stories like the one about Mr Goodwill intervening in the local authority in the Solicitor Generals constituency when they fail to print the truth spoken in court about the lack of leisure facilities being provided in this scheme even though their reporter has been sat in attendance throughout, but who then seize every opportunity to promote the scheme whenever they can?

All of these things are a disgrace. None of them make any sense in a truthful, decent, society and despite these things leaving more questions unanswered than answered, these things are going un-challenged. It is time that this was stopped. It is time that all of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Councils affairs regarding the Coatham scheme and beyond were brought out into the open and investigated thoroughly and independently, not internally and behind closed doors and it is time for anyone who is found to have behaved in a manner that is not befitting the position that they have either held or are holding, to be brought to justice and barred from public office. We, the people of Redcar and Cleveland ask you to hear our voice and give us the independent investigation that every, decent person can see, is so desperately needed.

Thankyou.