No new cemetery road for Honeypot Lane
Lib Dem councillor Karen Chilvers is claiming victory as a controversial road to serve the proposed extension to the London Road cemetery was kicked into the long grass last night.
Back in February, councillors agreed to investigate four options for the cemetery and all of these had a new vehicular access to the extension. During the election campaign, Cllr Chilvers highlighted this to residents and found, not surprisingly, that this development would not be welcome.
Since the Lib Dem councillor took this action the Tories, behind closed doors, have removed the new vehicular access from the plans and kept the existing access from London Road instead.
Although delighted, Cllr Chilvers is disappointed that the Tories cannot admit their mistake and are trying to cover their tracks by claiming this was only "one of the options". She says:
"The minutes from February and an email from a senior officer on 31st May clearly confirm that there were four options, all of which included a vehicular access from Honeypot Lane. This would have been disastrous and affected many residents negatively.
"My campaign highlighted this fact and, it seems, led to them back tracking on the matter. I cannot see their issue with just admitting it and saying they have listened to residents rather than trying to pretend they didn't make an error of judgement here."
"Still, the important point is that there will be no new tarmac road, there will be a beautiful green burial site and a wonderful habitat for wildlife full of wild flowers."
Ward councillors, including Cllr Chilvers, will now be involved in formulating the final plans for the new burial site and a formal consultation with neighbouring residents will take place.
Cllr David Kendall, Lib Dem group leader, said:
"I commend Cllr Chilvers on highlighting this to residents and getting the Tory administration to re-think this matter. This is an excellent result for local people and shows how good opposition councillors can change things through exposing the administration's shortcomings."