#dagenham and redbridge

Council refuses to let vicar speak about protecting St. Peter’s church from gravel extraction committee meeting

Footage from this evenings planning committee of Lafarge voting to add another 20 years of gravel extraction but this time at the very doorsteps of the community! And worse the destruction of a grade 2 listed church where they disscussed and asked Questions about the church but refused to let the vicar speak

I was horrified to hear the chairman tell
Is that because of his busy schedule and his wish not to be there all night as they had other things to discuss that they didn’t have time but the allowed an extra advocate of lefarge / Brett Tarmac to speak in favour breaking the speaker guild lines of who was allowed to speak but I guess it’s all the chairmans discretion especially when he voted in favour
Also when confronted with the gallery of people asking to let the vicar speak on behalf of the church they were discussing he said and I quote if the gallery continues that he would be happy to have a cup of tea because he’s happy to make us wait

That one of the council memebers delcared it not to be a political matter and that he could not see one good reason for it not to go ahead as angry residents is not enough evidence to go on, even though doctors and researchers, surveys and studies where or enough To go on!

That the woman who was reading out guild lines and sat next to the chairman on the committee handed the lefarge/Brett Tarmac representing information and fed her answers when she was failing to awnser questions council memebers where posing to her on there proposal

This was a done deal before we walked in the door and is a horrific mistake that will cause the NHS millions in local cases of breathing problems and cancer rates, that local schools and nurserys will either have to close there doors for safety reasons or allow children to become only 20-75 meters from gravel works, that they are robbing this area of safe footpaths and public fields and replacing them with alleyways unlit and unsecure
And that a church with no foundations won’t end up in a whole on unstable ground that they want to flood

Extremely angry and saddened
As these people only thought of the 6 million they will be receiving for lefarge/Brett Tarmac to get what they want at the expense of people’s lives health and community
They have been gravel extracting in this area for 50 years and we have just been signed up for 20 more on broken promises, lack of care, continued abuse of contractual language vagaries that have lead to land being left to ruin and timelines being pushed back and back

Disgusting

Vicar not allowed to speak
Kate Lovesey