THE LEADER OF Harlow Labour has told YH that he wished the Harlow Conservatives would “concentrate on keeping their promises” rather than criticising Labour.

Councillor Chris Vince said “You know that things aren’t going well for the Conservative’s when they revert to ‘throwing dead cats’ at the press, an effective strategy used by Dominic Cummings where he’d quickly throw out a news story to cover up one he wanted buried. 

However, Dominic Cummings eventually ran out of dead cats and was found out for what he was.  I suspect eventually the Harlow Conservatives will suffer their own ‘Barnard Castle.’

However, I would like to put the record straight on the accusations being spewed out by a desperate administration:

1. The warehouse behind Bynghams – Cllr Churchill makes some serious allegations about the findings of an investigation into the planning decision in Bynghams.  What investigation?  The opposition haven’t seen sight of these findings. In fact, there hasn’t been an investigation and therefore no report has been produced.  Former Cllr Waite did not sign off the decision.  There is a process where council officers had delegated authority to make minor amendments once the principle is agreed by the planning committee. Once again it is poor form to make something non-political into politics and even poorer form to attack a former Councillor publicly when he has no access to council papers or officers to defend himself.  I have huge sympathy for residents of Bynghams but what we need to do is find a solution to the issue not resort to political infighting. 
2. The Traveller injunction – as the Conservatives know it was an independent barrister that advised if the council proceeded with trying to extend the injunction it would have been rejected.  The initial injunction was brought into effect because at the time there was an issue with a small number of illegal traveller encampments in the town.  It did its job.  It is not okay that the Conservatives think it is appropriate to slam a group of travellers every time one comes to Harlow.  In this case the travellers left peacefully and caused no harm at all.
3. Homelessness and rough sleeping (Like Cllr Carter I also declare an interest here.) – the grant of £1.1m is an ongoing grant from central government and not an additional £1.1m as is suggested in the Tory infographic.  Cllr Wilkinson agreed that the RSI fund has increased to tackle the increased issue of homelessness.  We welcome this but it is a shame it took the Tories the best part of ten years to try to tackle the issue, much of which was of their own government’s making. The fact that Harlow may get more than surrounding authorities is down to a government formula identifying need and not ‘super lobbying’ from Harlow’s MP.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised to see the Harlow Conservatives resorting to this sort of tactic.  We’ve got record waiting times in A&E, a Prime Minister who is more at home at Peppa Pig World than running the country and locally we’ve still seen no sign of this Council Tax cut the Conservatives promised ‘immediately’ when they were trying to get elected.

Over seven months into their administration all we have from the Tories is an endless attempt to bash the previous Labour administration, empty promises and of course dead cats.  Harlow residents deserve better!

“Personally I’d much rather spend my time helping the residents of Harlow and supporting my local community than having to waste my time having to responding to spurious claims from Conservative Councillors”.