On Wednesday evening the Sustainable Development Committee passed a recommendation, proposed and seconded by New Labour councillors John Cooper and Ruth Cadbury, who appeared exceptionally motivated and well-briefed, to permit the expansion of Thames Water's operation at Mogden in the face of protests from residents. Sadly it is extremely likely that this will result in increased odour problems for the already long-suffering residents of Isleworth and Hounslow South.
There is not a word in the English language to describe the way I feel right now. Officers, at best, were remiss in failing to share crucial information with the Committee regarding possible funding options for the covering of the storm tanks, but frankly I don't envisage that any action will be taken nor even any questions asked.
There is much that I would like to say right now but will not do so, for reasons of discretion and (possibly misplaced) loyalty. I am awaiting a response to an e-mail.
But in the meantime I would like to sincerely apologise to my constituents and to ask them to bear with us, for I promise that whatever happens over the coming weeks and months Isleworth residents will not be the sacrifice.
37 comments:
Outmanoeuvred, outflanked and outsmarted by Labour !
I thought they were supposed to be hopeless ?
Unelectable they may be, but they're clearly still capable of throwing clunking great spanners into the works when it suits them.
Confucius he say: "Start listening to flies on the wall and you may not notice elephants crapping on your doorstep".
Who has been outmanoeuvred, outflanked and outsmarted by Labour? Not the ICG! Its worth noting here that the ICG hasnt been shafted by its enemies, its been shafted by its friends.
I wonder whether Mary McLeod was watching the webcast of that meeting, if she did she must have been screaming at the computer screen. Nearly 3500 people signed the MRAG petition. Her only consolation is that Andrew Dakers didnt take advantage and the Labour councillors were the most outspoken hostiles of all. Is there any prospect of MRAG putting up a parliamentary candidate of its own? Wouldnt win but it would sure draw attention to the suffering of our local residents.
I must admit the Confucius quote made me smile Dishonesty, but I can't see that the ICG has been outflanked or outsmarted here. What exactly have we done that we shouldn't have done, or haven't done that we should?
I would also sound a note of caution to anybody who thinks we have been dealt a mortal blow. Recent history shows that the Isleworth people are at their best when alone with their backs to the wall and taking on all comers.
Whatever their critics might think or say you have got to admit that Ruth Cadbury and John Cooper have played a blinder here.
By persuading the Tories to support them at SDC they would have known that you, with your biggest support base being around Mogden, would have no option but to publicly criticise them with all that entails for your coalition. Getting Andrew Dakers on side as well may just have been the unexpected icing on the cake.
They probably also knew from sympathetic officers, and there are plenty of them in that department, that the Tories were not particularly enamoured with MRAG and that any support they did give was grudging and offered in exchange for your blessing for their Council Tax policies. In other words they knew that nobody other than John Hardy would support MRAG and the residents out of conviction.
Everything that has happened since Wednesday (?) has been an unavoidable and predictable sequence of events once that fateful vote was taken.
Both you and the Tories need to step back and think where this is all going to go and what you can do to recover the situation before it all spirals out of control. I don't pretend to know the answer but my feeling is that some honour has to be satisfied on both sides.
In the meanwhile would you not agree that this Labour masterstroke rather puts paid to the mischief spouted by the Fly on the Wall?
Labour is coming out fighting, at last. Ignore that at your peril.
phil andrews is nt helping the situation by allowing all these contraversial posts through.
@ Anonymous
With respect, this blog is an open and uncensored vehicle for debate. If it ain't obscene, racist or otherwise offensive it gets through.
If the people of Isleworth felt so strongly about the Mogden expansion application;where wre they to protest and put thier case nobody turned up, so they could not have been that bothered about the outcome.Don't answer they did not Know this issue has been in the minds & e.mails of MRAG for months if not years
It seems to me that your Tory freinds no longer want to be in partership with YOU any more!!
All I can say is HA HA HA HA EAT S**T YOU STUPID ICG SUICKERS!!!!!
"It seems to me that your Tory freinds no longer want to be in partership with YOU any more!!
All I can say is HA HA HA HA EAT S**T YOU STUPID ICG SUICKERS!!!!!"
Dont talk so much rubbish!
I saw the webcast on the night. I would agree that Ruth Dadbury in particular seemed very confident and well briefed. It seems clear to me that they were playing a political game and they won it with ease. The coalition is stuffed.
"If the people of Isleworth felt so strongly about the Mogden expansion application;where wre they to protest and put thier case nobody turned up, so they could not have been that bothered about the outcome.Don't answer they did not Know this issue has been in the minds & e.mails of MRAG for months if not years"
Prat!
Dishonesty/Politics -- the only elephants crapping on the doorstep are to be found in the Environment department...they can be seen from Isleworth but unfortunately not from the Conservative Party office apparently...
Game, set and match to Labour.
"If the people of Isleworth felt so strongly about the Mogden expansion application;where wre they to protest and put thier case nobody turned up, so they could not have been that bothered about the outcome.Don't answer they did not Know this issue has been in the minds & e.mails of MRAG for months if not years"
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Prat!
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I agree. What an ignorant pillock.
I am happy to leave the political arguments and slagging to the politicians. What I need to know is why we, the residents who have suffered the Mogden Stink for more years than I can remember, have been sacrificed once again by politics and people who have no idea or interest in what we're going through. When is someone going to start listening to us, the residents? What a disgrace you all are, the damn lot of you!
Stuffed U Like - nice theory but you are wrong. Labour don't want to end this coalition. They believe keeping it going is the best chance of beating the ICG in 2010. FACT!
I'm having trouble following the plot here.
The original posting entitled "Sorry!" was surely apologetic - apologising for the fact that at a recent meeting, the bad guys (Labour ?) did more homework and turned up better prepared than the good guys (everyone else including the ICG, but not exclusively the ICG ?)
As a result, their will prevailed and Isleworth is now set to become the undisputed P*ss & Sh*t capital of Western Europe.
Have I got it wrong ?
Newspapers are sniffing around today.
@ More Confused
No, you've got it right except for the fact that the ICG member on the Committee was not unprepared.
Could I please remind friends that when one discusses strategy and other sensitive matters on this blog one discusses them with the world?
It goes against my nature to censor posts or to curtail debate, but two entries this morning haven't made it for reasons which should be obvious to the posters.
Mr Andrews, I made no specific reference to the ICG being outmanoeuvred, outflanked, out for the count etc in my original posting.
However, 'borrowing' someone else's previous terminology, perhaps you could clarify the following:
Who EXACTLY were the bad guys who turned up with a seemingly rather obvious evil plan and who EXACTLY were the good guys who were seemingly too blind to spot it and completely powerless to stop it ?
Please respond with words, not with a fry in my wheelie bin or a pile of pachydermal dung on my doorstep.
@ Dishonesty
BAD GUYS:
Thames Water - lied to the Committee about OFWAT permission being needed to cover the storm tanks.
Ruth Cadbury/John Cooper - IF you believe they manipulated the situation to cause a rift in the coalition. Speaking personally I lean slightly towards FOTW's view that Labour don't actually want to break the coalition.
Whoever failed to brief Cathy Gallagher about the funding options for covering the storm tanks - having viewed the webcast again I do believe that Cathy genuinely didn't know the answer to the question regarding OFWAT and the covering of the storm tanks, and that her flawed response was a product of ignorance rather than an attempt to deceive. In one sense this reassures me as I have always had a high opinion of Cathy as a person and as an officer, but it does beg the question - who failed to brief her properly and why?
Phil Andrews - the mug who has kidded himself, and others, for the past two and a half years that the culture at the London Borough of Hounslow has changed.
WELL-MEANING BUT MISLED:
Conservative and Lib Dem members of SDC - sh*t in, sh*t out, as they say, and very apt considering the nature of the application. Got it right to begin with, then wobbled with the help of some deeply flawed advice from officers.
Lily Bath (possibly) - for the same reason. If however you take the view that Ruth and John were up to no good, another theory - that Lily cottoned on half way through the debate and joined in - enters the plot.
Cathy Gallagher (Planning) - sent into the meeting armed with duff advice about funding options for the covering of the storm tanks.
INCURABLY DUMB:
The poster who thinks that because MRAG sent a speaker and not a demonstration there is no popular opposition in Isleworth to increasing Mogden's capacity by up to 50%.
JURY STILL OUT:
Other officers present - one was an Environmental expert and another a Legal expert. Did they know that Thames weren't telling the truth about funding options? I guess we'll never know.
No message, just stating a fact.
Mogden dear Mogden, your turds are magnificent
Cover them not, my windows are open
My curtains, my bedding, my clothing await your sweet fragrance
Bless me now and every day, I WANT my house to smell of a thousand farts
Well wicked geezer, I'm in heaven
It's better than Brentford beating Man United 10-0 in the FA Cup innit ?
What a shame I can't edit your comments, I'd have renamed that one Ode to the SDC. ;o)
So where do you go from here then. Rent Boys or residents, time to decide guys....
Nobody is fooled by your little front group and you should expect the REAL politcians to put you in your place from time to time what is what happened at SDC. Get over it chaps.
Talk is now of an MRAG parliamentary candidate! Worth 4000 votes in my oppinion, could make all the difference to the result. Lets set the bandwagon rolling!!
Having read your candid, no-nonsense reply, the MRAG account and all the various local newspaper articles, I am now considerably wiser and ANGRIER !
It would appear that there was absolutely no requirement for the councillors present at that meeting to make ANY decisions regarding Mogden at that moment in time.
The High Court battle between MRAG and Mogden is due to start in October and it would have been prudent, and not unreasonable, to defer the planning application until that battle was resolved, as MRAG had advised.
However the panel entrusted to act in the best interests of local residents apparently knew better, allowing itself to be blinded with science/naively hustled and the rest, as they say, is history.
I can hardly believe it, presumably none of them live anywhere near Mogden and will therefore not suffer the consequences of their action.
Perhaps myself, 'Ode' and your good self Phil, should visit the Civic Centre and fart a thousand times in the chamber ?
p.s Surely the fourth word of Mr Anonymous' recent posting elsewhere should read "devock" instead of "davock" - it doesn't make sense otherwise.
And how precisely will it benefit MRAG to let useless Ann K££n back in thru the back door?
@ Dishonesty
I think the comment to which you are referring was intended as a parody of Mr. David Hughes, the very existence of whom doesn't make any sense.
I wandered as lonely as a cloud through Mogden......
**** ME, I won't do that again in a hurry !
Drive me straight back to Strand-on-the-Green James.
Bunch of unemployed dossers after a bit of compo, whipped up by another one of the same ilk.
@ Getridofscroungers
Well, as you've spent nearly six hours at my blog over your last two visits you can't have a great deal of work on either, methinks.
Actually thinking about it Getridofscroungers, wasn't this the bunch that got rid of you?
Really Philip how disrespectful !
Don't forget, she was almost like royalty to us plebs during her heyday.
Who have we got to tell us what we should have now ?
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