The recent council meeting saw ambitious Green Party activist Rob White present a petition and ask a question about the protection of Alfred Sutton Playing Fields which he claims Reading Borough Council wishes to concrete over with housing.
He makes an inspecific attack on the Labour administrations 'poor record in this area' for failing to implement a blanket protection order on all playing fields, which he says Cllr Page 'attempted to rubbish'. He says it is a 'issue of trust' that has not been helped by 'Labour councillors [...] sending out mixed and unclear messages about what would happen'.
Labour's Richard McKenzie gets angry that Mr White neglected to print the full reply to his question which describes how he
"prefers to campaign on the basis of spreading false rumours and thereby raising unjustified concerns amongst the local community."Apparently the nomination of the Alfred Sutton playing fields was made by landowners TVU for consultation on, rather than RBC, and although they were included in a 2008 consultation document they have been removed from the areas under current consideration. However there is no direct protection order on them.
Meanwhile Labour antagonist Jane Griffiths has become sucked into the debate as she expresses her scorn for her former colleagues by 'fisking' the reply Cllr Page provided.
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NB. Park ward has been the location of a furious political battle over recent years. Long regarded as the heartland of Labour activism to the east of Reading, it is now at the junction of a four-way battle. Internal splits in the local party organisation saw growth in Green party support which enabled a Conservative councillor to sneak in.
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Ignoring most of your bias as a LibDem member against the Green Party, the results at the last local elections were: Labour 1014, Green 994, Conservative 704 and LibDem 286. That doesn't look like a four way fight me. The Labour councillor who is up for election this time is standing down. The Tory Councillor is up for election in 2011.
ReplyDeleteRob,
ReplyDeleteclearly you find it easy to differentiate between the singular and plural of 'year' and 'years'... that different challengers have come to the fore is merely a reflection of the unpopularity of Labour rather than the popularity of any other candidate.
As for biases, I don't deny that I have them, but my biases aren't partisan - as should be evident from the way I use a balanced range of sources.