NOW LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU!

MRS P - AN EXAMPLE TO THE PUBLIC? DO NOT DARE TO QUESTION THE AGENCY!
OR ELSE!

PUBLIC to SPEAK OUT IN RUGBY: ARE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY CLAIMS TRUE OR FALSE?

The RUGBY ADVERTISER reported 24th July that: QUOTE: "The Environment Agency believes Lilian Pallikaropoulos is the ONLY person interested in pursuing legal action, and that the public should not pick up the bill.

Mrs Pallikaropoulos argued in the high Court and House of Lords earlier this year that the Environment Agency has hidden vital information from the public when they gave Rugby Cement permission to burn tyres in Rugby.

And although the House of Lords said the EA showed "real shortcomings" they ultimately sided with the EA, and disagreed that the plant in Lawford Road Rugby should stop burning the alternative fuel, and even close down. The EA have this week said Mrs Pallikaropoulos should pay all its legal costs on her own.

Mrs Pallikaropoulos told the Advertiser: "It is grossly unfair, and totally untrue, what the Agency has done to me by saying that I am the only person in Rugby who cares." The case against the EA had originally been brought to the court under the name of Rugby resident David Edwards with the backing of legal aid. But the EA argued that this was just a smokescreen so Mrs Pallikaropoulos could bring her own "private campaign" to court, and not pay the costs.
60,000 RUGBY RESIDENTS INVISIBLE TO AGENCY?

In a report by the EA lawyers it stated: "No one who actually lives near the works appears willing to continue the proceedings. In fact local residents other than Mrs Pallikaropoulos have failed to display any continuing interest in operations at the Rugby Cement works. In essence these proceedings constitute one relatively affluent and "committed" individual's own private campaign."
UNQUOTE

WE HAVE WAYS OF MAKING YOU TALK! AND IF YOU DON'T, WE WILL SAY THAT YOU DID!

TAKE PART IN OUR TRUE OR FALSE?

1. "Mrs P sought out David Edwards as a claimant."
The Agency quotes newspaper cuttings as 'proof and evidence' that I have 'most definitely' done this 'seeking out'.

2. She says she was "acting ostensibly on behalf of Rugby residents. Those residents were concerned about the likely impact of emissions from the plant. Those concerns cannot easily be equated with the public interest issues...."

3. However even if residents' concerns can be equated to "the public interest" the extent of those concerns in the present case is questionable."

4. The appellant says "that the permit in question aroused very substantial concern and controversy from residents and public bodies including Rugby Borough Council, and that she was acting in an almost entirely altruistic fashion so the matter could come before the courts". However there is no evidence of widespread public support of the case in Rugby or elsewhere."

5. It is respectfully submitted that the public's lack of response to consultations on more recent Agency determinations is more indicative of actual levels of actual interest."

6. Mrs P "put up the claimant David Edwards to secure funding"... and "in essence these proceedings constitute one relatively affluent and committed individual's private campaign."

7. In her submission she 'says' she has funded her costs before the Lords out of a legacy and that she will be put to serious hardship if she also has to pay the Respondents' costs.

8. Mrs P claims this is a "serious deterrent to access to justice".
Mrs P argues that the Respondenst should be denied their 'reasonable costs' and that these should fall instead upon the tax payer.

9. As regards the EU Directive as regards costs 2003/35/EC provides that any such procedure should be fair, equitable, timely and not prohibitively expensive.

10. Mrs P says the UK has failed to properly implement the requirements of the directive and this will be disputed by the government. The cost of litigating environmental issues in the UK is "minimised by inter alia" the availability of legal aid, and of the protective costs orders. The fact that in any event these were not available to Mrs P in the circumstances of this particular appeal does not undermine the Government's position in that regard."

11. Mrs P decided to take over the case from Mr Edwards and she was well aware of the risks that this involved. It can hardly be said that the costs would be a serious deterrent to access to justice.

12. The only part of the case where she has succeeded is in "the simple procedural irregularity by the Agency." and this is 'ONLY a breach of the common law rules of fairness' by the Agency in failing to disclose the AQMAU reports.

13. SO, in other words, deceiving the public, misleading and failing to disclose the MOST DAMGING DATA about the emissions and health impact is all right by us!

ENGAGING IN COMMUNITY RELATIONS?

OR FLOGGING A DEAD HORSE?

Yet more "sham" "pretend" "meaningless" public "consultations", perhaps "invented" to keep Rugby residents off the streets, and busy, as our time, money and energy are all squandered in yet more abuse of process. WHAT MEANINGFUL OUTCOME CAN THERE POSSIBLY BE?

RUGBY CEMENT COMMUNITY FORUM
60,000 residents involved in cement plant STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT.
Rugby Borough Council awarded £15,000 from the existing HEALTH PROTECTION BUDGET, and with Cemex and the Environment Agency jointly engaged THE ENVIRONMENT COUNCIL to undertake a review of stakeholder and community relations around the Rugby Cement Plant, and to make recommendations on potential ways forward.

"We did this by gathering information and feedback from a range of stakeholder and community members, through one on one telephone interviews. We then analysed this information, identified emerging themes and have made a series of observations and recommendations, all of which are included in the attached report."
The report is being simultaneously released to the funders of the review (CEMEX, the Environment Agency and Rugby Borough Council) and stakeholder and community members. It will also be available on The Environment Council's website at: http://www.the-environment-council.org.uk/rugby-cement-plant-stakeholder-engagement-review.html, Rugby Borough Council's website at: www.rugby.gov.uk and CEMEX's website at: www.cemex.co.uk

"In order to give all stakeholders (including funders) an opportunity to respond to the report and its recommendations, and give feedback, The Environment Council will be convening a workshop in late June.
The report and its recommendations are The Environment Council's advice, based on long experience of best practice engagement, on the optimal approaches and methods to apply to achieving robust, transparent and open stakeholder and community engagement. Acting on these recommendations may entail resource commitments and CEMEX, the Environment Agency and Rugby Borough Council will need to take a joint view on the best way to proceed."

"One of the key purposes of the workshop is to allow all interested parties to contribute their views and feedback specifically on the report and its recommendations, which will help inform decisions about future steps. The workshop will focus on gaining feedback on the report, and won't focus on issue-based questions such as activity currently going on around the cement plant, potential future resource implications, or reiterating information that has already been considered in the formulation of the report and its recommendations."

WAIT A MOMENT - IT DOES NOT ADD UP!
IS THIS THE SAME ENVIRONMENT AGENCY THAT SAYS "NO-ONE BUT LILIAN IS BOTHERED ABOUT THE CEMENT WORKS IN RUGBY!"

TYRE TRIALS CONSULTATION, or ABUSE OF PUBLIC?
Rugby residents are now to comment to Cemex on the "draft 6 tonnes and hour tyre trial report", but with what aim in mind? Year after year we "being consulted", bombarded even, by yet ever more SHAM, time-wasting, costly, soul-destroying, meaningless, false promises of public participation! Rugby Borough Council paid out £10,000 to a facilitator to produce the Tyre Burning Review Group's damning report on 3 tonnes and hour, which the Council endorsed! But to what effect? Perhaps they should look up the definition of "consultation" in a dictionary?

"PUT UP AND SHUT UP!"would be much more honest, and "business as usual!" End now the "tick boxes", of "community engagement"! The Environment Agency, RBC, WCC and Rugby Cement have well and truly flogged the dead horse of consultation in Rugby.

But here we go again - residents are to be consulted on the waste plant?

HA! HA! HA!

HORSE TRADING

BEGINS AT SOUTHAM AND RUGBY.
SECTION 106 PRICE TAG?
WHAT AM I BID?
WASTE PROCESSING PLANT
Southam and Rugby parallel applications due in any day. Focus is now on the "delicate negotiations" no doubt going on in the back room between Cemex and the County Council. What SECTION 106 payment will be offered in order to make "WHAT WOULD OTHERWISE BE UNACCEPTABLE, ACCEPTABLE"?

DEAL, OR NO DEAL?
So far, unsurprisingly, the County and Borough councils have refused to answer any questions about this current "negotiating process", and have failed to make it transparent. What price will be put on our heads, and who will decide what is acceptable, and who gets to keep the Section 106 cash? Rugby residents are still smarting, (and will until the cement plant is demolished), from the last County "sell out", when Rugby's environment, amenity, air quality and health, was compromised and traded by the County Council in the 1996 deal, that breached Community Law - had no Environmental Impact Assessment, or public consultation. All for a paltry £500,000 as a "contribution" towards Rugby Cement's Western Relief Road. (Later things were made worse when the relevant air quality impact and other related data was concealed by the Agency, County and Borough Council as they jointly turned the cement works into a co-incinerator without following the due IPC and IPPC and EIA process.) This pittance, (as that was what it was even at that time!) as all recall, was then put in the bank at WCC and the annual interest paid to Rugby Cement, as they argued over the route, putting it in the green belt to "conserve" the route for Rugby Cement, until the "sell by date" expired, and the pittance was due to be returned, unspent, in February 2006. Council officials are tight-lipped about the location of this illicit fund. Did they pay it back or not?

SINK TOWN?
And even more tight lipped about how the County has devalued the whole of Rugby, causing it to become a sink town, where people are afraid to speak up, some for fear of persecution by the authorities and others for fear of damaging the marketability of their property. Thousands now have to live next to a massive unlawfully built co-incinerator, which emits about one million cubic metres of polluting gas each hour from the main stack, and many hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of polluted particulate-laden air from the unmonitored Low Level Point Sources, with no fail-safe mechanisms, (even the much-heralded bag filters do not work 100% of the time, are not on the emissions from all the sources fed into the main stack for dispersion, and they are bypassed,) getting on for 1,000 juggernauts a day, and a massive polluting plume highly visible all winter. No wonder the powers-that-be want to keep this all "under wraps!"

RAILWAY OR CANAL?
The delay in construction caused by the interminable discussion about whether the Southam Rugby railway should be re-opened to connect the two Cemex sites of Southam and Rugby has cost the public, so far, £26,000,000 in EXTRA construction costs alone. And untold other costs in terms of traffic jams and dangerous pollution, social services, and NHS costs in terms of the health impact in the poor air quality in Rugby. Now they want to increase pollution in an area that is already DEPRIVED, over-polluted, and with pockets of ill health and social and health inequalities. Meanwhile Cemex and the County both make the hilarious suggestion of using the canals to transport the 2,000 tonnes a day of clay to Rugby, but the Waterways Board says this is impossible, a non-starter, with all the locks, and have pointed out that "err! the canals do not even go to the cement works - err!" So that brings us back to the railway again - that has been conserved by WCC and Rugby Cement specifically in order to transport the clay - and now the waste from the Waste Processing plant shortly to be constructed at Southam?

CONTROVERSIAL GAGGING ORDER!
THE WORDS CEMEX/RUGBY CEMENT BANNED!
The Rugby Advertiser 26 June reports that the chattering classes are at it again with their "whispering campaign" to gag me, to shut me up! They are determined to allow no discussion, and to keep other people from hearing my all too pertinent, awkward, revealing questions, which cause them such pain! Long Lawford Parish Council joins RBC and WCC (and the EA) and will not allow the public, (even their own parishioners), and those who they are supposed to serve, to ask any questions about Cemex, its plans and its operations. They all jump on the banning-band-wagon, and shout "Shoot the messenger!" A vain attempt to silence me!
PATHETIC!