I know from my time on Surrey County Council that the commitment to environmentalism of many Tory Councillors is not strong. They refused to sign up to the Nottingham Declaration and many were openly scathing about Cameron’s green agenda. I had thought though that Woking Tories were different, having supported the many local environmental projects. Unfortunately Monday’s Council meeting seems to have demonsatred that local Tories are not as green as Mr Cameron would like. This from the Woking Lib Dem Website

“Cllr Denzil Coulson reports from Monday night’s council meeting. 

“At full council tonight, Woking Tories voted against our Lib Dem council motion to sign up to the national 10:10 campaign to reduce carbon emissions “as close as possible to 10%” in 2010.

Their reason? They stated that Woking was doing enough to reduce carbon emissions. “How arrogant” cried Bryan Cross, one of our Lib Dem councillors lambasting the Tories for their failure to engage on this issue. As I stated in the Council chamber tonight, “if Woking is doing such a good job already on green issues, why not sign up to the campaign to go further?” I stated further that Woking loses its leadership on green issues by not signing up. If Eastleigh, who have even less carbon emissions than Woking can sign up, why can’t we?

It was when I heard Tory councillor, Tony Branigan, stating that Al Gore’s 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth was “a pack of lies” and another Tory councillor expressing scepticism about global warming, that I realised that Woking Tories are complacent at best on the urgency of tackling climate change and filled with climate change denialism at worst.

Unless we tackle climate change seriously, the economic and social costs locally, nationally and internationally will be greater under this Tory complacency on green policy.

It also shows that David Cameron’s 2007 election slogan of Vote Blue, Go Green was merely a gimmick as the Tory commitment lacks real substance.”

It’s a shame but not a surprise.

Woking Council yesterday announced that it had bought Wolsey Place shopping centre and the office block above it that we all know as the BAT tower.

As mentioned in the blogs of my colleagues County Councillor Will Forster and Candidate for Horsell West Ann-Marie Barker, I think there will be two main concerns for local residents,

• There has been loads of news about the fact that Woking has one of the highest debts in the country, which led to the resignation of a senior local Tory councillor. At the moment it is almost impossible to turn on the news without being bombarded with news about the debt crisis and how we’re all doomed, so local residents are right to be worried about what this might mean for the Borough’s finances, especially as the Council is likely to borrow another £100m to facilitate the Hoe Valley scheme.
• The process involved is very worrying to me. It seems the decision was made on February 2nd, yet it was announced as a fait accompli yesterday 22/2. The whole thing has been handled in Part 2 (government jargon that says business can be conducted in private if it involves personal or commercially sensitive information). While I was a member of Surrey County Council I used to challenge the use of Part 2. It has become a default for councils in Surrey. I believe it is being abused. For example it would be perfectly possible for WBC to have had open discussions about the possibility of buying Wolsey Place without mentioning the commercial arrangements in detail. A similar process was followed during the pre-planning phase of the McLaren’s development and I was very unhappy about that.

I believe it is beholden on our councillors to explain clearly all the implications of this deal  and to release into the public domain asap all the relevant papers. I will be keeping an eye on this and will post updates.

Update at 11.15. Just read this on Cllr Denzil Coulson’s blog. I will continue to dig around.

I must admit I am finding it really hard to keep up with all the unbelievable stories about local Tories. Former leader of Woking Borough Anne Murray has been accused of questionable conduct concerning attendance of a conference. Link here.

Anyway  Anne congrats on your recent marriage to fellow Horsell East councillor Mike Smith.

Sorry, just a little laugh but I just checked the local Tories website and they have one of their councillors down as representing the wrong ward. Wonder how long it will be before they notice?

psst, Don’t tell anyone but I know they are monitoring this site, so now they have a dilemma, change it quickly and demonstrate that they are fond of my site or leave it and show they don’t even know what their own people are doing. Probably filling in expenses claims.

McLaren’s have submitted a planning application for a major development of their existing site. The details of the application can be found on Woking Borough Council’s website at McLaren’s PA

The application number is  PLAN/2009/0440

Although in general I believe the application is a good thing bringing high quality jobs to the area, I have 2 main areas of concern.

• Putting such a building on Green Belt is fraught with problems. McLaren’s have demonstrated that they are good corporate citizens by the way they have built and maintained the site. However we would not want to see their development to set a precedent for further encroachment on the local Green Belt.

• The biggest issue for me is traffic. There are already major issues with traffic on Woodham Lane especially at the junction with Martyr’s Lane. My current thinking is that there should be a planning requirement to improve that junction. There could also be a requirement to improve public transport links. At the recent development for Mercedes at Brooklands they were asked to subsidise a bus service linking their site with Weybridge, West Byfleet and Woking stations. If McLaren’s were to subsidise a bus that ran from Woking Station to their site, on to St Peter’s Hospital and Chertsey Station it would reduce the number of journeys to and past their site.

I would like to get your views on the development. You can give me feedback by clicking on the comment link above.

I am completely opposed to any sort of office development on Brewery Road Car Park. I successfully led the fight on the County Council to stop County Hall coming here, and I am prepared to fight again even if the new development is greenwashed by being for an environmental charity. Why the Borough insists on defining the car park as a town centre site I don’t know.

We all know that putting that sort of development on the car park would be the thin end of the wedge with developers looking at the adjacent sites and trying to put offices on them. Also many people like the openness of the car park compared to the multi storeys.

If we have to have something there I would like ti to be an amenity for the community perhaps using the canal frontage for a restaurant or cafe.