5 November 2010 LATEST! Just In....the Charlie Elphicke Response!
Charlie responds to the housing situation and to talk of Tory splits....
MP Charlie Elphicke says:
“This is not new. I have consistently said I am opposed to building thousands of new homes in Whitfield. Indeed, my latest newsletter said that too.
“It’s a nice try at stirring things up as a Tories split story. In fact the relevant district housebuilding plans were passed by the district council without a vote against from any party. The council’s policy is to build thousands and thousands of houses. I believe in preserving our green open spaces. I believe in building on brown field first. My focus is on jobs and money. Houses should only be built when they are needed by demand.
“This is not populism. This is principle. I have continued to make Whitfield’s case to the council since I was elected. Only last week I met with council officers with other elected representatives serving Whitfield to make the strongest case for the village to have proper planning gain and infrastructure development should the council’s plans go ahead.
“I will continue to make Whitfield’s case to the council. It is right that I listen, that I serve the people to the best of my ability and represent their concerns.”
Disharmonious Tories not singing from the same hymn sheet.
There have been rumours of a yawning gap for quite some time now between the top two Conservatives locally, Paul Watkins Leader of Dover District Council and our MP Charlie Elphicke, in fact we have suggested as much on this website in the past..which of course was always met with the usual standard denials. We have seen Charlie launch a thousand leaflets here in Dover without a glimmer of a sight of Paul Watkins in any of them, although they do and did feature everyone from Reg Hansell to David Hannent, supposedly, according to legend…Independents. And when Charlie launched his thousand ships with Vera the other day, no sign of Paul Watkins on the chum filled balcony either.
And now to make matters worse and perhaps to highlight the problem in existence, here we have a letter supplied to us by the local Chairman of UKIP Vic Matcham. It comes from Charlie Elphicke saying quite clearly to the UKIP Press Officer that he is against any development in Whitfield and Sholden etc which is directly opposed to the view taken by Paul Watkins and the Dover District Council. Just to remind you...these are the leading Conservatives. As we said Paul Watkins is of course Leader of Dover District Council so this lack of co-ordination on major issues sounds problematical. ( Paul Watkins as well as Leader is also an active member of this website)
This is clearly a populist move by Charlie, pictured above left, and designed to go down well with the ensconced residents of Whitfield and beyond, but is it shortsighted?…well there we are…without further ado here is the correspondence just sent in…
Picture left shows the local Chairman of UKIP Vic Matcham who sent us through the correspondence. Vic and UKIP are making hay to a degree at the Conservative disarray over housing and also oppose the Port 'privatisation' as do Labour . In the correspondence below Brain Kidd is the UKIP press officer. Read on....
From: ELPHICKE, Charlie
Date: 3 November 2010 18:41
Subject: RE: Whitfield & Sholden Housing Development
To: brian kidd
I totally agree with you. I think DDC has it wrong. I oppose the development. Full stop.
Best wishes
Charlie
From: brian kidd [mailto:briankidd.deal@gmail.com]
Sent: 28 October 2010 10:24
To: charlie@elphicke.com
Subject: Whitfield & Sholden Housing Development
Dear Mr Elphicke.
With regard to the housing developments at Sholden and Whitfield . I haven't met anyone who is in favour of either of them.
I wont go into the reasons why these developments should not go ahead as I am sure you are/have been made aware of them already!
I have a couple of questions . How would such a large scale development enhance any ones quality of life?
Who is going to live in these houses?
How can building over agricultural land square with the governments aim to be more self sufficient in food production and less reliant in imports?
The developer has been buying up land for some time. He seems very confident of getting the go ahead. Does he know
something the rest of us don't know?
These questions along with others will be addressed to the planning people if given the chance. I would like to know your position on these proposals.
Kind regards,Brian G Kidd.
* *
Charlie Elphicke is peddling a Quack Remedy for the Nations Premier Port... SAY LABOUR.
While you might have noticed the huge amount of publicity MP Charlie Elphicke has generated for himself in recent times, his plans for the Port are not going down well with everyone. We on Doverforum have heard quite a few rumblings of discontent not least from the Labour Group who have sent in the following press release....
Cheerful Charlie Elphicke’s ...
Magic Port Elixir.
The proposal put forward by Conservative MP, Charles Elphicke, for a so-called “People’s Port” has been dismissed by Labour as a “cynical deception” and as “privatisation by the back door”.
Gordon Cowan, Leader of the Labour Group on Dover District Council, says: “Mr Elphicke's proposal sounds too good to be true and it is too good to be true. There is no detail about how the proposal will be financed and what information there is just doesn't stack up.”
”Mr Elphicke's "big idea" will only distract the people of Dover and Deal from fighting the Harbour Board's proposal to sell the port to the highest bidder. I can only assume that that is what Mr Elphicke wants. Then his Conservative friends in Westminster can flog off the port and his Conservative chums in the City can take their cut. It is a cynical deception to claim that the people of Dover will end up owning their port. Mr Elphicke’s scheme is privatisation by the back door.”
Mike Eddy, Deputy Leader of the Labour Group on DDC, says: “If the Conservative and Lib-Dem government insist on selling off Dover, transfer to a co-operative organisation would be preferable to selling to whoever has the deepest pockets. Asking every man, woman and child in Dover District to chip in a tenner will only raise £1 million. The rest, and that’s about £399 million, will have to come from the banks. Mr Elphicke is peddling a quack remedy for the nation’s premier port.”
Gordon Cowan pictured left adds: “And how can anyone put their faith in a proposal from a politician who said before the election that he supported the port's Trust status and promised to fight privatisation and then, just a month after the election, started his own campaign to destroy the Trust Port."
(ends)
Picture of Port by Paul 'Scotchie' Wells.