Advertiser letters: Spitalfields parish and Brexit
James Frankcom, Spitalfields Planning Forum's secretary. Picture: MIKE BROOKE - Credit: Mike Brooke
Letters, contributions and comments sent in to the Advertiser this week.
Our movement was crushed
James Frankcom, spokesman, Spitalfields Town Council Campaign, writes:
In last week's paper Tower Hamlets CEO Will Tuckley complained about how he felt the East London Advertiser had misrepresented the results of the consultation. He is mistaken because this newspaper qualified what they said and in our view reported things entirely correctly.
In both stages of the consultation people living within the bounds of the proposed town/parish and who responded using the official online method supported the proposal by over 60 per cent. We at the Town Council Campaign consistently objected to the use of "paper consultation forms".
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We felt paper forms were wide open to abuse. All of us are familiar with the way certain political factions have abused postal votes in the past and let us not forget that Cllr Lutfur Rahman was a Labour councillor in Spitalfields for many years before he was mayor.
The formal terms of reference published by LBTH in advance of the public consultation made no mention of home-made and unsigned paper survey forms collected on doorsteps and produced in back rooms being acceptable. We and the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) both complained about how these forms severely undermined the integrity of the whole process and were wide open to being abused.
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During Stage 1 (which ended in January 2019) over 60pc of people who responded from within the bounds of the proposed parish area and who used the official online survey method said yes to the proposal. In Stage 2 (which ended in May) this was repeated and over 60pc of people in the parish who responded using the official online consultation format as envisaged in the terms of reference once again said yes to the proposal.
We supported the use of an online survey because it recorded individual IP addresses and ensured responses were freely submitted in the privacy of one's home.
We maintain this was the flawed outcome of a bogus consultation. A genuine grassroots movement was crushed by Tower Hamlets Labour Group. One day the people of this borough will wake from their slumber and then maybe things will start to improve.
Brexit trade
Sebestian Wordsworth, St Anne Street, Limehouse, writes:
The UK has seen its trade with the European Union fall every year for the last 10 years and the long term trajectory of that trade is likely to be further reductions in the economic benefit to our country of that trade with the European Union.
During those years the UK lost jobs because companies were given relocation grants by the European Union in direct violation of its own laws and regulations.
Every time a job is lost to another country in Europe the UK becomes poorer that is why The English Democrats will introduce tariffs on goods imported into the UK from low cost countries in Europe and beyond to ensure that the average working class family can actually obtain employment.
Food is more expensive because the EU and its taxes on imported fruit and vegetables from outside the EU and English Democrats will scrap these.