I've just come back from a turbulent and rather messy town council meeting which SWRDA, in the form of Carl Budden, Paul Calvert and James Harper, attended.
My first impression: what a lot of questions! 81 on the sheet the Council had prepared, and 10 more from Paul Lund which had somehow been forgotten in the rush.
The meeting progressed pretty well at first: Rory Weightman, who was spokesperson for the Morlands Crew, submitted the groups views, which predictably suggested that the Red Brick Building be saved and converted to a space for the community with artists studio, facilities for young people, and for the community.
Ted Higgins then spoke of his fears that the whole project would drag on too long and asked who would be paying for any community space. Unfortunately he rather ungraciously let his prejudices slip with regard to the protest group and smeared them, by suggesting that they didn't want to pay for anything, to audible protests from the floor.
Carl Budden went over what he said at last weeks council meeting (see an earlier post for details).
I'll leave this post right here for now: it's late and I'm tired. My thoughts are that the Mayor could have kept the meeting on a shorter leash: while people need to express their feelings, not much was achieved and many, many questions weren't addressed. I asked Paul Lund, founder and director of the Sustainable Environment Company, if any of his questions had been answered: he gave me a one-word answer and I'll leave you to guess what that was.
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