COUNCILLOR CLAIMS RUGBEIANS ARE UNCONCERNED ABOUT POLLUTION ISSUES:
Rugby Observer 3rd August.
(Councillor claims Rugby people apparently too busy to bother about their health and pollution!)
Poor attendance for a high-profile question time event about Cemex's plans to burn more rubbish shows Rugbeians are not greatly concerned about pollution council chiefs claim. The controversial remark was made after just 90 people turned up for the public debate at the Benn Hall last Thursday 27th July. About 350 free tickets were available.
It was billed as an opportunity for the pubic to grill Cemex, the Council, and environmental protest groups about Cemex's plans to burn recycled paper and plastics (that is London's household and commercial waste) as a partial substitute for fossil fuels.
Rugby MP Jeremy Wright who shares the concerns of protest groups, including Rugby in Plume and Friends of the Earth, believes more evidence is needed about air pollution and its possible health effects.
But the Tory Councillor Carolyn Robbins the Borough Council lead member for the environment said the low turn out showed people were not greatly interested. "people have a lot more important issues in their lives to be concerned about." she said.
BUT CRITICS CLAIM the fact tickets had to be pre-ordered to attend the meeting may have deterred some people from turning up. Lilian Pallikaropoulos of Rugby in Plume said: "Instead of airing the serious points that arose at the meeting councillors have chosen to zoom in on how few people came. Rugby in Plume understands all the issues only too clearly, and has been fighting the WASTE burning, and co-incineration at started by the tyre burning, for five years, and has the initial 7,500 signature petition and mandate from Rugby people.
Most councillors and officers are out of touch with public feeling, lack any understanding of what is involved, and fail to represent the public!"
3 comments:
Time to claim costs against WCC and RBC!!
How much public money did Warwickshire Council give to help fight the airport?
How much public money did RBC give to fight the airport?
How much money has WCC and RBC given to Rugby in Plume to fight the co-incinerator plant?
How much public money has WCC and RBC cost the people of Rugby in general, and RIP group in particular, by "covering up", preventing access to information, and by trying to mislead and misinform in order to prevent the whole truth from being revealed?
WHO DUNNIT
You certainly asked a leading question there. The Conservative Leader of RBC, Craig Humphrey, perhaps affected by the "hot air" on the night, sought to cast aspersions on RIP at the 27th July Question Time, but it has rebounded firmly on his own well-deserving head! It has drawn our attention to the many "shortcomings" and unfairness of Rugby Borough Council, of which he is the leader. The Chief Executive Diane Colley, who headed up this Council through-out all these "goings-on", has now mysteriously left RBC reportedly suffering from stress. I wonder why?
Rugby in Plume have had no assistance or help/funding whatsoever, and in fact the opposite has occurred that by hiding, and deceiving, (and LYING, losing their memeory, losing their minutes, losing the attachments) and keeping pertinent details and papers OFF the Public Register the RBC (and WCC and EA) have cost RIP a LOT OF EXTRA money which can only be described as a kind of "FRAUD", and this is now being investigated by higher authorities.
Mr Gordon Collett (Conservative) was the Chair of the ARAC antic-airport campaign, and his wife was the treasurer. Many thousands of pounds of our PUBLIC money was poured into their coffers. I have not seen the accounts of it but will now request them and post them on this site.
7,000 people did march at Church Lawford against the airport and Gordon Collett was quoted in the press "We have got good experience from the last march and I'm sure a similar event in Rugby would attract at least 30,000 people." In the event ONLY a few hundred turned up for the May 2003 rally - despite all the lavish funding they had enjoyed.
On 15th November 2001 WCC Regulatory Committee met and their officers recommended the members, including Gordon Collett, NOT to object to the Rugby Cement plant becoming a CO-INCINERATOR!
Then, on 30th December 2002 at the RBC full council meeting Mr Collett is reported in the press as "having a go at the Labour party."
He is reported to have said:
"We're the Midlands dumping ground. We all know about the pollution and we are taking other people's rubbish!"
But on June 2nd 2006, still clutching the keys to a Cemex provided £22,000 mini-bus, and gracing the cover of the Rugby Cemex propaganda newsletter he said, about the burning of Climafuel (London's household waste) "If we do not get hysterical about this, we can get it through!"
Who are the "hysterical" in all this?
Why is it that Rugby Council's Nov 2005 Annual Monitoring Report seems unconcerned about the Standardised Mortality Ratio (SMR) for Rugby being 104 in 2003 [Sect 2.3.14 of above report] when the variation in SMRs in eelctoral wards is absolutely huge and must have been known to officers at Rugby Council, Rugby PCT and at the Environment Agency for a very long time. You need a ward map of Rugby and an idea of the location of CEMEX to understand what's going on as any PM2.5 emissions from CEMEX will affect people living downwind of the site as opposed to upwind. CEMEX straddles at leasst two electoral wards, Bilton & Newbold. You can confirm that the ward boundary between these two follows a footpath that goes northwards from Edward Street & across disused railway line. The SMR is a measure of death rates within an area or an electoral ward and is the ratio of the actual number of deaths divided by the number of deaths that could have been expected if the death rate had been the average death rate for country based on population. It's Observed deaths divided by Expected deaths and that answer is multiplied by 100. If you live in a ward where the death rate [in number terms only, not age related] is the same as aveerage for England & Wales, the SMR=100. Anwhere with an SMR greater than 100 has a higher death rate than average & vice versa. The SMR of 104 for Rugby disguises the fact that for the 5-year period 1999-2003, the SMR for deaths under 85 years varied betwen SMR=66 in Paddox ward, to SMR=162 in Avon & Swift ward. Avon & Swift has highest SMR of any electoral ward in the West Midlands. Here are the SMRs for all wards in Rugby: Admirals 96; Avon & SWift 162; Benn 113; Bilton 68; Brownsover North 75; Brownsover South 101; Caldecott 96; Dunchurch & Knightlow 88; Earl Craven & Wolston 102; Eastlands 83; Fosse 83; Hillmorton 104; Lawford & Kings Newnham 81; Leam Valley 69; New Bilton 91; Newbold 116; Overslade 109; Paddox 66; Ryton-on-Dunsmore 79; Wolvey 104. Prevailing winds are mainly WSW & NW, so it's unlikely that PM2.5s from CEMEX are not connected with elevated rates of mortality in certain wards, including Newbold, Brownsover South and Avon & Swift. You can thank Philip Dunne MP for getting this data released and you can thank Dr Dick van Steenis and Michael Ryan [see www.ukhr.org] for infirming Shropshire MPs of what's been going on with health & death rates in parts of Shropshire that are affected by PM2.5s from Ironbridge Power Station. You can also thank Lilian Pallikaropoulos for going to Manchester University [UMIST] in May 2002 to hear an unknown researcher [Michael Ryan] lecture "the enemy", ie Environment Agency & other "experts" on the hazards of industrial PM2.5s. You can access "Listening to Local Concerns" online by entering [Alan Dalton, Michael Ryan] into google as it was published in Dec 2002. Mrs Pallikaropoulos needn't have travelled to Manchester, but she's been fighting for the health of Rugby citizens for many years now and the government's own data [Office of National Statistics] reveals that she's right to be concerned. I'm posting this comment 6 Aug 2006 and expect all Rugby Councillors to be aware of the death rates in their wards before a week is out. Kind regards, Michael Ryan, Shrewsbury
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