RSS, Regional Spatial Strategy
Are the Tories about to make a U turn ? Again ?
A couple of weeks ago Cllr Nick King (Tory) convened a meeting at Bournemouth Council Offices, using Bournemouth Council Officers, on the RSS in Bournemouth, Poole and SE Dorset. The invitation list read like the invitation list to a Tory cocktail party. Both Corfe Mullen and Lytchett are under threat of a great deal of additional building under this project and we have been working hard for 18 months in protest, however neither Fred Drane nor myself, both County Councillors, were invited to this meeting, each of our areas was represented by a Tory, one a town Councillor and the other a Parish Councillor.
At this meeting all sorts of protest actions were discussed and agreed and Nick King seems to be hailing himself the lead protester for the RSS.
May we remind the Tories that when the response to the original RSS was debated in March 2006, the Tory administration at Dorset County Council, the Tory administration in Poole, the Tory administration in Bournemouth and the Tory administration in East Dorset ALL supported the proposals for urban extensions into the Green Belt. The LibDems were the lone voices in protest. Subsequently the Tories on East Dorset reversed their stand, fearing a massive loss of seats at the local elections, however all the Tory Councillors who were also County Councillors who made a U turn continued to support the response at County level.
Sheer hypocrisy !!
I am delighted if the Tories, at this late stage, realise the damage these urban extensions will do, I am delighted if they make a U turn, but please do not take the moral high ground and pretend this is all your idea !
We have been fighting this vigorously and to the highest level for over 2 years !!
have your say
