MILL LANE ALLOTMENT ASSOCIATION IN FLINTSHIRE

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HISTORY IN THE MAKING

Tuesday 15th August

It gets even more bizarre.

CQTC claim they have never blocked/prevented/refused/been asked for the provision of toilets on the Mill Lane Site.

To top all that off there is going to be a site visit tomorrow where a "member of the public" who has raised concerns about facilities on the site is being given a site tour. 

NO INVITATION TO MLAA REPRESENTATIVES.

NO COMMUNICATION WITH MLAA REPRESENTATIVES.

APPARENTLY THE 30 OR SO MEMBERS WHO PAY THEIR RENT, RATE AS LESS IMPORTANT THAN A "MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC".

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Monday 17th July

I find it incredible but here goes, this will (potentially) be my last post before stepping down. This is a copy of my FB post in response to more "contrived" incredulity. Apparently a CQTC Councillor was appalled by the look of shock, horror or disbelief on the faces of the allotment holders who attended the meeting and has told the press this. This is an open invitation to any plot-holder who attended the meeting to come forward and tell me that they were shocked/dismayed/horrified/surprised/

disagreed with any of the content I delivered on the night.

I was there, I know who attended, and no one has said anything in support of the councilors claims.

So here goes

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FACEBOOK POST 17/07/2017

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"To be clear and for the avoidance of all doubt. I, nor the Association, have ever claimed to speak for all plotholders. The Association have posted, for public inspection, copies of documentation which clearly confirms the statement that the Town Council were disingenuous in their dealings with The Association, ALL plothoders, FLVC and Flintshire County Council. If any plotholders who were at the meeting were surprised by the content, tone or direction of my message to our elected representatives then I would urge them to discuss that with me or the committee.
I would also like to point out that I congratulated the COUNCIL, ALL OF THEM, on their ability to work with other social enterprises or community groups but challenged them on their inability to work with the Association. I also made the point that if Cllrs were unaware of the situation where we were prevented from taking up the offer of a "welfare unit", or we were told we needed planning permission for sheds, or that we were supportive of their Community Asset Transfer Bid, then they should look to resolutions.
If anyone is genuinely concerned about whether the truth has been spoken and by whom then they should take the time to read through the documentation which the Association has published and made available to all.
Finally I want to make it clear that I will be standing down from any role in the Association, but I will remain a member. This will be the first step in me taking forward my issues with CQTC and FCC as a ratepayer and elector. I do not want the coming fight to be clouded by references to the Association. The attitude, manner, behaviour and actions of some, not all, councillors is unbecoming of people in public office. My democratic expectation of fairness, unbiased and impersonal representation has been struck down. Lies are being promulgated and the people who have promoted them have neither the courage, acumen nor moral fibre to stand up and say they made a mistake. That is the failure here. People who are supposed to represent me have lied to me, and to others about me. Then they lack the courage to say that they have made a mistake.

I, as much as anyone, have made mistakes in my life, however when realised, I have always acknowledged my errors. I accept that I am not pefect. It would appear that it falls upon me to take a stand against small minded, small town, petty bureaucrats who believe they have some "divine right" to do and say as they wish. I will not afford these people the opportunity to claim that these actions are being taken by a slighted minority group. I will demonstrate to the authorities that these falsehoods were as a result of personal interest, personal dislikes and were not the informed decision of full council.

Sadly, if they were the decision of full council, then not just some individual members have failed in their public duty but the entire council has. 
The decision on what has gone wrong over the last 3 years will now rest with the body charged with ensuring that those people elected to represent me, through public office, perform their duties in a proper manner.
The saddest part of all of this is that it has been entirely unnecessary. If ,as I suggest, you read through the posted documentation you will clearly see that at significant points the Association always suggested meetings, discussions and partnerships as the way forward.

 

 

 

Sunday 9th July

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Wel here goes with the next 4 documents.

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I have decided to post some of my emails which have been copied to Mark Tami, Carl Sargeant and CQTC. These clearly outline the concerns, as stated over the months and years, regarding CQTC's handling of the site lease and their responsibilities to their tenants. In the interest of fairness let me say at this point that the association do not really expect the town council to stump up 30, 40, or £50,000 to rectify the appalling state of site security, fencing and facilities. What we are trying to highlight is that CQTC actively bid against a community group so as to retain the legal control over the site so cannot complain that their tenants are now concerned by the Council stating that they will not spend this amount on the required repairs and renewals as well as the required upgrades to meet their obligations to ALL TENANTS, able bodied and otherwise. I am no expert on Disabled Rights regulations, however I can hazard a guess that CQTC, as the landlord, are failing in their duty of care to a significant number of at risk, vulnerable visitors to the site.

The documents relating to these communications are in column 4. They make up the last 4 documents in the column culminating in the very last document "Ways_Forward". That document outlines our attitude which has existed for the last 3 years. If I am guilty of anything it is always giving a small number CQTC councillors the benefit of the doubt, indeed believing them when they say things will change, or we'd be mad not to deal with you, or "common sense" will drive our dealings with tenants. happy reading

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Friday 7th July

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I've just got home from work and sorted the first batch of emails. These documents which I am posting today are named Cat_Lies1, Cover letter in Response to Ad, MLAARESPONSE & Neal4 and are a set of documents sent to Flintshire County Council, Carl Sargeant, Mark Tami amongst others highlighting the lies told in the CQTC CAT bid and copies of letters sent to CQTC which show that was the case. The letter to CQTC dated May  2015 clearly details individual and association opposition to CQTC being involved in the CAT process, yet CQTC in their document say that no written opposition was received.....

I also find it interesting that Cllrs Attridge & Attridge whilst jumping to their own defence in the press do not  take a stance defending the actions of either CQTC or FCC.

I particularly commend the document MLAARESPONSE (in column4)

document which clearly, unambiguously and with some force explains the situation in MAY 2015 which is exactly the same as the situation now.

I literally have hundreds of emails to plough through so as I find relevant documents I will post them.

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Well we made the front page of the Leader! However  I am concerned by the statement from Cllr Pam Attridge to the press  that she categorically did not say "why can't you just pee in a bucket in the polytunnel". I will post a copy of the complaint letter/email sent to my MP and AM where I raised this issue with them at the time.

In addition could I draw your attention to a little known piece of electors rights. In our documents page you can see in  the third column a PDF named 50request. It outlines OUR RIGHTS as electors to call OUR council to account for their actions and behaviour. We can force them to attend a public meeting to answer to US, as electors, and explain their actions.

Anyone up for it????

 

 

 

Thursday 6th July

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So the situation rolls on. I have posted the next block of documents for your delectation. I particularly draw your attention to the third column of documents, this contains copies of correspondence with CQTC relating to disputes with plotholders.

It catalogues attempts at summary eviction of tenants, in contravention of statutory obligations, trumped up vexatious complaints from "anonymous" individuals, failure to respond to Freedom of Information Requests, the list goes on. It all makes for good bedtime reading. I'll start sorting out emails tomorrow and hopefully get those posted over the weekend. I'll post on the Facebook page when I have uploaded more. (the Facebook page is getting a lot of views..... I wonder from who?)

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Wednesday 5th July. 

Finally the Mill Lane Allotments Association has been granted an audience with their elected representatives at Town Council. 

Connah's Quay Town Council have finally agreed to "allow" the chairman of the association to put the views and thoughts of the membership to full council. 

This meeting has been "granted" by the council after 3 years of asking and comes on the heels of an informal meeting between the Chairman of the Association and Cllrs Roberts, Tinman & P.Attridge.

The purpose of this meeting is to try and make it plain to full council what the Association has endured over the last 3 years. To make it plain that the Association will no longer tolerate being lied to, misled, misrepresented and marginalised by a tiny minority of councillors. If full council were aware of all the points brought to their attention tonight then clearly  the Council was guilty of maladministration and formal complaints will follow. If they were not aware of these issues then there has been a clear lack of communication between the nominated committees and full council. In which case there has been a distinct failure in the running and management of the council and formal complaints are likely to follow.

Reports of the meeting to follow.

Sadly permission will not be granted for me to video the presentation but I will ask and we will have to trust to my notes and the notes of others to construct a true reflection of the process

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As expected council refused me permission to record my presentation so we have to trust to my notes amended after the meeting.

These notes along with the first batch of documents released are now available to view, you will find all the documents published so far by clicking on this link DOCUMENTS or by browsing to the page in the more tab.

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Saturday 19th September

We are going to be working with Keep Wales Tidy, the Wepre Country Rangers and Fly Tipping Action Wales on the Big Dee Clean .

Keep Wales Tidy have supplied litter pickers, gloves and waste bags.

Fly Tipping Action Wales are psponsoring/paying for a skip for the larger rubbish items.

The rangers are supplying man with machine to help move some of the larger and more difficult items in the Brook.

Sainsbury's, through their Welsh Community Fund Programme, have provided a grant of £500.00 towards the geeneral cost of maintaining the area over a period of time. The money will be used to purchase waders, a shelter for the volunteers and general consumables like gloves, bags and bins.

We will be cleaning up the general environment around the Allotment site, the Community Garden and the banks of Wepre Brook which borders the site. We are asking for local volunteers to help us with the general litter picking and clear up. For more info go to our Dee Clean page

 

The latest pages entitled "Show and Tell" can now be found under the More button. This is where the latest produce will be featured. Many thanks to everyone who has already contributed and please keep the pictures and stories coming.