Colchester Conservative Association

Letter to Essex County Standard – 15th January

I find Cllr. Goss’s recent bleatings in your newspaper utter hypocrisy!  While I wholeheartedly agree with Myland Parish Council’s abhorrence of yet more development, I find it quite astonishing that Cllr. Goss can do one thing, yet portray a completely different story to the media.  

Having won his seat by running a particularly vitriolic campaign, blaming the then Conservative Administration for the ‘overdevelopment’ of Mile End, he now sits on the Local Development Framework Panel, where he is in a position to influence the level of development that North Colchester must endure (or so his election literature would have had people believe).  He now accepts that Colchester’s onerous ‘building targets’ are set by Central Government, not by the Local Authority (funny how his narrative has changed now that his Party lead Colchester), he also now understands I am sure, that failure to meet those targets results in this Town and its taxpayers being penalised by the Government.  

Given Cllr. Goss and his party’s alleged anti building stance, it is interesting to note that the Government have just awarded Colchester almost £1.5 million in Housing and Planning Delivery Grant, this to an Administration that was going to stop the expansion of our Town.  I understand that without this grant, this Administration would have a budget deficit of around £1.7 million.

Cllr. Goss would have his electorate believe that he is standing up for them, and yet he was happy to vote through the LDF, complete with its North Colchester allocation, at full Council last year.  In an absurd twist this December, he decided to abstain from voting on the ‘East of England Plan Review’ consultation response, in which the Council stated that Colchester would only continue to meet its current targets and not the ludicrous ones being foisted on us by the Regional Assembly.  Effectively Cllr. Goss voted for no restrictions on developers, indeed, had the Council followed Mr. Goss, we would find ourselves in a position where Colchester would be fighting and losing appeal after appeal, because we had put forward no policy response of our own, therefore could be deemed not to have one.

This year voters will be given a clear choice, vote for the Liberal Democrats, who have no cogent housing policy to help Colchester, or vote Conservative, a Party which has a policy of returning the power to determine housing targets back to Local Authorities, also a Party which will allow for the scaling back of development, both in numbers and densities.  Given Mr. Goss’ supposed wish to see development in North Colchester scaled back (although his voting record says otherwise), I can only assume that he will be voting Conservative at the General election, and that he will be encouraging his residents to do likewise, as this is the only way that Colchester stands any chance of halting its headlong expansion.

Matt Eaton