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Cllr Taylor Reveals The Results Of The Consultation
It appears that a majority of the 4000 responses to the survey were in favour of the proposal to fund the restoration of Gunnersbury Park with money from the sale or lease of some of its land.
This information was given by Cllr Phil Taylor of Ealing at a meeting of the Northfields Ward Forum on Thursday 22nd October.
It is reported on the blog “The green campaign to save Gunnersbury Park” -
http://gunnersburypark.blogspot.com/
The text reads:
“Essentially, we had 4000 responses to the survey out of 77,000 circulated (5%). The results will be published in a few weeks, however he did say that a large minority were against the funding proposal and that as a consequence this funding option is not likely to go ahead. But it can now be presented to English Heritage (EH) in negotiations to show that Enabling Development was considered.”
This seems to suggest that Cllr Taylor believes the act of consulting with the public and then rejecting their opinion will strengthen his hand in negotiations with English Heritage.
Remarkable.
James Wisdom
25th October 2009
Mere formalities. Unfortunately when they realize what's been done it'll be too late.
on 27th October 2009 at 21:36 PM
Dear Mr. Wisdom,
I am afraid to say the above statement if yet another false and misleading statement without any grounds. As a resident of Ealing I had the opportunity to attend that meeting and to challenge Councillor Taylor on this issue. As a matter of fact, among 4000 replies to this farcical survey, the majority was against the proposed funding options, although they did express a favourable opinion on the proposed use of the buildings. To my understanding “funding” option implies selling the land as a source of funds and the public has demonstrated its objection to this point. There are absolutely no grounds to say that the majority of the responses were in favour of funding the park restoration with money from the sale of some of its land. If you have extrapolated these results from some snippet of conversation that some of your friends reported to you (I do not remember seeing you there at the meeting), then you have been very naïve. The other possible option is that you have received this information from somebody either within the Councils or, even worse, within Jura Consultants whilst the complete results have not been yet made available to the public. Councillor Taylor explicitly said that he knew the preliminary results of the survey but at the time of the meeting even Hounslow Council did not have the whole picture – the analysis was yet to be completed in all the details. How can you state with such assertiveness that the results are in favour of selling the park? You must answer this question and clearly explain how you could come up with this conclusion, or you should publicly withdraw this statement! Your disregard of this question will just persuade the public of your connection with Jura Consultants…
Ealing resident (and Friends of Gunnersbury Member)
giusiortu on 17th November 2009 at 10:34 AM
Please read the piece James Wisdom posted above once again - he gives the source of the information very clearly and quotes the words Conrad Bryan had written there. You have no grounds for using this to imply that he has somehow behaved in an underhand fashion. If a large minority was said to be against the funding proposal a majority must be in favour.
Val Bott, Friends Newsletter editor
Val Bott on 17th November 2009 at 18:10 PM