Cllr Alan Storah Member of Uttlesford District Council for The Sampfords Ward May 2019 until October 2020 Alan sadly died suddenly in the past few days Alan was a mild mannered and kindly spoken man A former planning officer at Uttlesford until 2012 A planning spokesperson for the Residents for Uttlesford Party At his death […]

My To Everest or to spitefulness post last Monday has stirred up some reaction from the Residents for Uttlesford (R4U) party and its allies. They think I am acting bitterly and unfairly by challenging and criticising their handling of Uttlesford’s Local Plan since R4U were elected into office with an overwhelming majority in May 2019. But […]

Around four years ago, I visited New Earswick on the outskirts of York to see an early 20th century housing initiative by the Rowntree chocolate manufacturers. The aim then was to build quality housing for the people of the chocolate factory. One-hundred and twenty years on, Uttlesford District Council wanted until recently to bring the […]

The Residents for Uttlesford (R4U) election manifesto in 2019 promised: “We will review and improve or replace the current Cabinet system to make the District Council fairer and to ensure all that all voices are heard.” This matters. It goes to the heart of local democracy; that people vote for what they’re promised and can […]

That’s the sign one weekend commentator suggested Boris Johnson should have on his desk at No. 10. “Not me, I’m not responsible for what goes wrong.” That contrasts with US president Harry Truman’s actual desk-top sign “The buck stops here”. Even Conservative MPs are now speaking out against a Johnson cabinet of incompetent people whose […]

The Government is expected to publish plans next month to re-organise councils in Essex. In my opinion, the time is not right for such an upheaval whilst local councils are still dealing the consequences of the current COVID-19 pandemic and the emerging economic recession. Reorganisation would be extremely resource intensive and an unwelcome distraction at […]

Last week I was invited to attend a protest at Stansted Airport by easyJet employees. They were angry at the airline’s threat to pull its ground operations out of Stansted, with consequential staff redundancies, whilst the company had been taking large amounts of taxpayers’ money from the government during the Covid-19 pandemic and had handed […]

The Saffron Walden Reporter newspaper took up my post of yesterday as its lead story this morning. See below or more clearly and with photos at this link.        

In a statement this morning, Uttlesford Liberal Democrats have condemned the decision in April by the Council’s R4U administration to withdraw the emerging Local Plan. “It has backfired spectacularly on the district’s residents and environment. It’s a sign of panic that next Tuesday’s Local Plan Leadership Group meeting has been cancelled after the agenda was […]

Stansted Airport employees unhappy with easyJet and other aviation employers demonstrated at the airport yesterday. They had been prevented from demonstrating near the terminal building and airline passengers. I took the train to the airport and eventually found them by a roundabout beyond the employees’ car park. I chatted with Claire Lees, the Unite union’s […]