Parish councillors briefly discussed the response to their Parish Pledge leaflet at their meeting on Monday, 9th February, and revealed that only 101 people responded.
The leaflet was sent to the electorate of Alderley Edge in November 2014 to explain the Parish Council's plans to build a new medical centre, create a community hub at the festival hall, and improve parking in the village.
The document, which outlined their three point plan and invited residents to respond with their opinion, cost £3782 to produce and post.
Anne Ross, Clerk to the Parish Council, confirmed that in response to their mailing 78 emails were received and 23 letters.
She divided the responses into three sections: Medical Centre, Festival Hall and Heyes Lane allotment site and said that 48 responses were positive about their plans for creating a new medical centre at the front of the Festival Hall, 51 were neutral and 2 were negative.
In response to their plan to refurbish the rest of the Festival Hall to create a modern multi-purpose centre, 38 were in favour, 61 were neutral and 2 were against.
Thirdly, 44 people were in favour of the Parish Council's plan to create a landscaped 'Greencrete' car park on the current allotment site at Heyes Lane, one person was neutral and 74 were against, which included 18 copies of the same letter from different people.
Commenting on the small number of responses Cllr Sue Joseph said "The vast majority of people are too idle (to respond), particularly when it is something they want."
Cllr Nigel Schofield added "I think to be far it is not just idleness, there's also an assumption in the village it is going to happen anyway and therefore you don't need to kind of cash your vote by something that's going to happen."
Until the Parish Pledge leaflet was sent out members of the public had not been formally consulted on the plans, which the Parish Council has been working on for a number of years.
The Parish Council decided to write to the electorate about their plans to relocate the Heyes Lane allotments to Lydiat Lane and replace them with a car park to prove that the majority of residents support their plans - which have been met with resistance from some allotment holders and some local residents who have been gathering support via a petition.
Speaking at the October Parish Council meeting, Cllr Mike Williamson, Chairman of Alderley Edge Parish Council, said "I am quite confident that the overwhelming majority in this village supports the construction of the medical centre and the provision of parking space on the Heyes Lane allotment site and we are going to prove that.
"So what I am going to do is propose to you that we conduct a survey. We will write to every member of the electorate of the village and invite them to tell us what they think."
He added "This will provide us with the confidence that we are acting in the best interests of the whole village, rather than just a specific minority."
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
Most people are sick to death of this on-going debate and just can't be bothered anymore, hence the reply from only 100 or so ratepayers.
My declared interest is that I am totally IN FAVOUR of the proposed Heyes Lane / Doctors Surgery / Festival Hall car park going ahead, especially now we have a new and difficult situation with the Waitrose car park contract ?
By the way, I would assume it's quite easy for the 75 / 100 Allotment Holders to secure at least 2,000 votes in favour of keeping their Allotments on Heyes Lane if they all ask 20 of their relatives and friends to back them.
I must have backed the wrong horse in being against the development of an acre + car park right in the middle of the village. Turns out that practically everyone in the village wanted it all along.
Just a couple of observations on the Cllr's appraisal of the results.
The comment that people are idle if they want something i.e. wouldn't be motivated to respond. I'm not sure you know. People would be idle in equal proportions whether they want something or actively don't want something. So I think we can strike through that one, not sure that comment is particularly compelling either way.
The comment that people didn't bother responding because they know its a done deal and is going to happen anyway.This one is a bit more sinister. This rather implies that people's views could have never have influenced the outcome anyway. In other words there is no connection between the wishes of the electorate and those acting on their behalf.
Could have also saved the thick end of £4K by simply telling us what we want rather than asking.
Couple the above with the by now tired and worn out, hackneyed, old dog of an argument that the petition of 1800 ish signatures was irrelevant because [INSERT FATUOUS REASONING HERE], I'm not too sure reasonably minded people would agree that the support for the car park has been proved.
I have read the above and it quite clearly says that out of the 101 responses
Thirdly, 44 people were in favour of the Parish Council's plan to create a landscaped 'Greencrete' car park on the current allotment site at Heyes Lane, one person was neutral and 74 were against, which included 18 copies of the same letter from different people.
The way that this response was reported, by Cllr Connor in the chair, was as follows: Festival Hall x positive, x negative, Medical Centre x positive x negative (she gave figures from the Parish Clerk's spreadsheet, I regret I didn't note them)
Then: Heyes Lane mumble mumble negative mumble positive right let's move on then.
A speaker from the floor, something the Parish Council don't like much, asked for clarification which turned out to be as follows:
Of the responses received for proposals in the Parish Pledge leaflets, those responses relating to the change of use from Heyes Lane allotments to Heyes Lane car park were : 74 against, 46 for.
So, not only did the petition amongst electorally-registered voters in Alderley Edge turn out a massive show of support for the Allotment site to remain as such, not to be a car park - but the Parish Council's own leaflet drop has elicited the same response.
The people of Alderley Edge appear not to want the Heyes Lane allotment site to be turned into a car park.
Councillor Keegan does though, so what do our opinions count for in the face of that, eh?
The petition is ignored because it wasn't conducted in a format approved by the PC
The PC then conducts a deeply flawed but expensive consultation at our expense , the outcome is then ignored by the PC.
I'm getting confused by this "democracy"
Scandalous
What we must continue to make clear is that the developers of the Medical Centre have gone on record as saying that the development plan provides for ample parking for the needs of their staff and patients.
AEPC have been particularly disingenuous in this regard and have repeatedly tried to scare the electorate into thinking that they wont get a new Medical Centre without a car park - absolutely NOT the case.
When Councillor Keegan is asked plainly about his "association" with Emerson Developments - the builder nominated for the development of The Hall, he either goes quiet or resorts to childish insults, but he remains resolutely unwilling to enlighten us and therefore, in my opinion, he brings disrepute on to the whole project and for this reason I will oppose it.
All seats on the Alderley Edge Parish Council are up for re-election on the 7th May 2015. If sufficient candidates stand against the incumbent councillors then you will have the opportunity to elect a completely new Parish Council on that date.
If you want to know how to stand for election then please feel free to contact me directly. (Lisa has my email address and I am happy for her to give it out to registered users of this website).
However, if nobody is prepared to stand against the incumbent councillors , then i can only suggest that you expect more of the same.
A Wilmslow resident and prospective candidate for Wilmslow Town Council.
Councillor Keegan, having arrived to the meeting late, confirmed to the Chair that he DID have a 'PDI' (Personal Declaration of Interest?) relating to the Festival Hall contract being awarded to PE Jones.
"But I won't be leaving the room" [during the discussion of that topic]
For starters, he continues to push his apparent belief, as was pumped in the ludicrous ‘spin’ in the so-called ‘Parish Pledge’, that the Festival Hall, Doctors Surgery and car park are all linked.
The only problem with this is that the planning process – for which he is responsible and where one would hope there IS logic – didn’t include the car park. No amount of blustering on his, or the PC’s part, can remove this fact. Even the updated Festival Hall plans do not incorporate the redevelopment of the allotments.
He now claims here that people are “sick to death of this on-going debate”. But, why is the debate on-going? Surely if the PC was responsive to the ratepayers, then the ‘debate’ would have stopped the moment they received a petition signed by over half the rate payers of Alderley.
However, why worry about opinion or logic? Why not just ignore it and spend £3,782 of the taxpayers’ money to prove the taxpayers were wrong?
So, how well did Cllr Mike Williamson go in confirming his ‘confidence’, as stated in the Parish Pledge, that "the overwhelming majority in this village supports the construction of the medical centre and the provision of parking space on the Heyes Lane allotment site”?
Well, it depends on your logic!
When confronted with a result you don’t want, apply spin! So, if you are David Hadfield, it proves that no one cares anymore, the petition was obviously flawed, and the PC can now proceed simply because only 74 people of those who responded were against the destruction of the allotments and, furthermore, 18 of these were the same letter but with different signatures. Clearly, this is a massive improvement on the 1,800+ who were opposed previously!
Conversely, the fact remains that over half the ratepayers DID sign a petition saying they don’t want the allotments replaced by a car park and the response to the Parish Pledge does not negate this. Furthermore, after the PC’s expenditure of £3,782, they managed to garner just 44 people, or just 36.97% of 119 responses to support their proposal. That’s barely 1 in 3 of the responses! The fact that 18 responses opposed the development were the same is irrelevant – the Parish Pledge did not say every response had to be unique! Such a comment smacks of more ‘spin’ and is akin to the appalling comment in the Parish Pledge which accused the allotment holders of being the only ones with a vested interest when, in reality, everyone has a vested interest.
The PC has just demonstrated that it has abused its power in ignoring the will of the people, and has gone further by wasting £3,782 in so-doing. The PC should therefore stop this ‘on-going debate’ immediately – by cancelling plans for the destruction of the allotments!
In all fairness, he was cleared by the enquiry of any wrongdoing at that time, but he certainly seems to like sailing close to the wind!
It seems also that his discourteous nature is nothing new as I read that he was sacked from the CEC Cabinet in 2010 following accusations of improper conduct.
I have no wish to denigrate the character of Cllr Keegan and I am certain that he has done much good work for the local community over the years. However, I think it important that these things are understood in the context of what is being debated and given the hasty and forceful (some would say bombastic) way in which he has championed the conversion of the allotments into car parking (and his failure to even address concerns about future use) I believe it is vital that we all fully understand what possibilities exist.
Please let me know which, if any, of these links fail.
Pete.
Fiona,
It will be interesting to see the minutes of the Parish Meeting when they are published; Cllr Keegan may well have Declared a Personal Interest at the meeting, however he has not Registered any such Interest either with AEPC or CEC, unless their websites are not up to date.
http://bit.ly/17AGvq4
http://bit.ly/1zVGV4Q
To avoid confusion, the Guide for Councillors on Personal Interests is here:
http://bit.ly/1jAP07H