Author name: Andrew

One of my responsibilities as a district councillor is keeping up with changes to planning law and local government. Most of the time those changes attract little attention outside council offices. Occasionally something appears that deserves much wider scrutiny. Labour’s planning committee reforms fall into that category. The consultation has closed. The Government has published […]

By now you will probably know that there was a significant development obtained from legal documents sent to Wealden District Council as part of the ongoing judicial review proceedings relating to Crowborough Training Camp. Buried within those papers was information indicating that the Ministry of Defence and Home Office had agreed that Crowborough Camp would

A few weeks on from the East Sussex County Council elections, I wanted to write something honest about the campaign: what I was trying to achieve, how the result landed, and where I go from here. Why I stood and why as a Conservative When I decided to stand for the Conservative Party, it was

There is an uncomfortable truth at the heart of the Crowborough Training Camp decision. The leadership of Wealden District Council did not lead the opposition to the proposal. It followed it. Residents were told there was “strong objection”. Public statements from figures such as Rachel Millward (Green Party deputy leader of WDC and “Co Deputy

Wealden District Council is supposed to operate on a simple principle: decisions taken by those in power must be open to question. Scrutiny exists to make sure of that. On November 6th in the week before the Scrutiny meeting on November 10th, the people responsible for leading the Council turned their attention not to the

I have had a huge number of emails over the past few days as everyone in Crowborough grapples with the news that broke last Tuesday that the Home Office had informed Wealden that they intended to use the MOD site at Crowborough to house up to 600 migrant males.  Many of you have emailed a

The news that the Home Office apparently intends to turn Crowborough Training Camp into a holding site for around 600 men has shocked residents. As Chair of Wealden’s Scrutiny and Performance Committee, I share resident concerns. This has been sprung on the community without consultation, explanation, or preparation. No member of a local authority, emergency

When the moment came to make a hard decision, Wealden District Council blinked. While every other council in East Sussex backed the “One East Sussex” plan for a single county-wide authority, Wealden alone walked away. This was not strength. It was weakness. It was not leadership. It was cowardice. One East Sussex: support everywhere else

Councillor Ben Cox, a Labour Councillor representing Uckfield New Town ward saw fit to post a video on social media, which, in my view demands a robust response. The video (which you can see below) is self-explanatory and deals with a motion proposed by Green Party Councillor Rachel Millward and debated during the full council