Contrast, Greens And Labour, Protect Or Build On Playing Fields

It really took some doing, but the local Labour Party are so bad that they are causing a stir. Their ex MP Jane Griffiths has been following the storey for some time. Basically a council document listed sites for potential development, nothing was yet decided, but the danger was there. Park Ward Green Candidate Rob White found the document, got a petition from local residents and highlighted the danger. Now the Labour Party could simply have said we agree, we don't want 315 homes built on a playing field, lets remove this site from the list. But no, thanks to their candidate ex-Cllr Richard McKenzie, they decided to pretend that the site was never on the list, though it was on the website! Richard writes a blog with no comments allowed,
here. So I am responding to him here. Jane has written a commentary for this, which I have copied below.


a straw man
Rob White and the Green Party, campaigning for Park ward as they consistently and energetically do, have been highlighting the development plans for the Alfred Sutton playing fields, as well they might, and they have succeeded in bringing out into the open the secret and corrupt ways of the leadership of the Reading Labour Group. Basher McKenzie, who wonders aloud on his website why people keep trying to run him over, (probably because one violent thug the less keeps the population safer, eh Basher?), thinks he will gain some electoral advantage in Park ward (though putting on your side bar "Where is Park Ward?" is not the best idea Basher) by rubbishing the Greens instead of campaigning positively on practical policies. With this in view he "publishes" a letter from Cllr Tony Page, as follows: ( a little light fisking is irresistible here)

Reply to Mr White from Cllr Page Janes Comments Italic
I thank Mr White for his petition but very much regret the mischief-making and scaremongering agenda oh no you've rumbled us we were trying to keep that secret that lay behind this petition. There is no threat whatsoever to the playing fields. we have always been at war with EurasiaThe Site Allocations Document is now known as the Sites and Detailed Policies Document, so now we've changed its name that's all right then and the draft document is to be discussed at this meeting. which we had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing The Thames Valley University playing fields are not included in the Sites and Detailed Policies Document, and there is therefore no need to remove them. oh yes they are, read the document and see below The existing built form of the TVU site, along with the areas used for parking, are included as an allocation primarily for education. Should it not be required for education then the policy does allow for residential see? and there are no plans to build any more schools in that area, but it is clear, and explicitly stated on page 94 of the latest document we hoped you wouldn't read that far that this would not include the adjacent playing fields.The whole Crescent Road campus, including the playing fields, was included as a candidate site in an earlier consultation version of the Site Allocations Document in 2008 we had it down to build on all along, you bastards, you spotted it, as it had been nominated for development by the University a big boy did it and ran away – not the Council. so who gives planning permission then? The Council consulted on all of the approximately 100 sites that had been nominated for development, as it is required to do. and the Greens have been responding, which we have decided to call "scaremongering"The document explicitly stated on several occasions that the Council did not necessarily endorse any sites. The playing fields are among a number of sites consulted on in 2008 that are not included in the current draft document. no - now we have been rumbled we are simply going to hem it in with car parking and prevent public access until in due course there is residential development on the site and the by-then-disused playing fields are covered with condoms and needles and sold off to another developer.