British National Party councillors in Leicestershire have taken on the Tories over a planning application the Conservative-run council wanted to push through without any public consultation.
The proposed development is for a 72 acre industrial and distribution development by UK Coal at the South Leicestershire Coal Disposal Point off Beveridge Lane in Ellistown. The largest unit would stand 58ft high and cover seven acres and the site would require more than 800 vehicles a day, most of them heavy vehicles, and all using the already busy Midland and Whitehill Roads.
The matter was first due to go before the planning committee of North West Leicestershire District Council on Wednesday 7th May despite there having been no public consultation on the huge development. This prompted BNP councillors Graham Partner and Ian Meller to go into action and produce an Ellistown Patriot newsletter which in formed local residents of the Tory Council’s intention.
“Ellistown does not need this development,” said the leaflet. “Think of the pollution and think of the noise which will be 24 hours a day and seven days a week. It won’t contribute anything to the community and will hit already falling house prices even further.”
The Tories tried to claim that the development would create hundreds of job opportunities, but this was rejected by the BNP councillors who said that it wouldn’t be local people that were employed but just HGV agency drivers and low-paid migrant workers.
Conservative Party councillors were livid that their best laid plans had been exposed by the British National Party and they launched a bitter attack on the BNP councillors at a full council meeting on Tuesday 13 May 2008 during a discussion about the new Planning Committee proposals. BNP councillor Graham Partner reports the proceedings on his blog.
“Still smarting after being publicly chastized for their role in a very dubious committee decision which they pretend was above board and proper, they obviously thought Tuesday would be a good opportunity to gain revenge on the two BNP councillors.
“In a moment of sheer stupidity, they verbally attacked the BNP in an attempt to justify their own culpability in the planning decision. The BNP members sat quietly, content to hear the abuse in the knowledge that right is on their side. Nothing the Tories said or will ever say can cover up the fact that they did not wish the people of Ellistown to know about the application in question and only the BNP had exposed that fraud by leafleting the area just one day before the Parish and two before the Planning Committee meetings.
“We have nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide. The public had every right to know what was going on and they can judge us themselves.
“Their words hold no fear for us and neither do their threats. We serve the people, they serve themselves. That is the difference.
With the Labour Party in disarray across the country it is being left to the British National Party to stand up for the rights of ordinary people against the big business and the back-handers that so typifies the excesses of Cameron’s Conservative Party.
Well done to the BNP......
The British National Party News | Now it’s left to the BNP to take on the Tories