Borough Election: Wilmslow Dean Row Ward candidate Paul Whiteley

How can Paul Whiteley have the cheek to say he' is doing everything in the power of a local councillor to stand up for local residents' views regarding protection of the Dean Row green belt and future development' when he did the exact opposite regarding Adlington Road. How can we possibly believe anything he says? Does he think we are fools? Cheshire voted out Neil Hamilton in 1997 and chose Martin Bell who was a great success as our MP. Can we not do the same again and elect a councillor who has no hidden agendas, lives in this area and cares what happens to Dean Row? The outcome can hardly be worse.

This is what I said to Kathryn Blackburn elsewhere, which applies equally here.

Sheer hypocrisy Kathryn Blackburn. This is yet further evidence of attempts by some members of the community to try and influence the electorate by a campaign of disinformation, distortions and downright untruths. You know full well that candidates for the Cheshire East elections are not required to be resident in the wards they seek to represent and many are not. You seek to portray Paul Whiteley as not "one of us" when your very own candidate, Toni Fox, also does not live in Dean Row! In fact she seems more intent in getting involved in local Handforth issues, where she is not a candidate, than on getting to grips with the issues being raised on the doorstep in Dean Row! No-one would believe, listening to you, would they, that Residents of Wilmslow accepted that the safeguarded land (not greenbelt) that is the Adlington Road site would be developed for housing. The difference between what they said and what Wilmslow Town Council said was one of timing. Not one bit of greenbelt has been sacrificed around Dean Row - that is fact, not fiction.

So you don't like people campaigning to set the record straight and factual. No-one is asking anyone else to like where we are but we have to be pragmatic and above all else realistic. Treating those who may wish to come and live in this beautiful part of the world as commuting pariahs, a distortion in itself, is not they way to win and influence the electorate.

Martin - glad to see that you are championing the cause of Dean Row considering the Conservatives at Cheshire East mooted merging Wilmslow with Handforth. The local Handforth issues you mention are about the green belt in the North of the Borough - part of this green belt is the last remaining two fields which separate Handforth from Dean Row (Wilmslow) and the status of these two fields as greenbelt has been downgraded by the local council in the current unadopted Local Plan.

This election is not about where the candidates live, although Handforth is considerably more local than the Green Belt and Conservation Area of Lower Peover where it is extremely difficult to get planning permission, - it is about who is the best candidate to represent their interests and concerns. My view is that new faces, and new voices are needed to champion the future of Wilmslow. New voices unconstrained by party allegiances and party politics.

And this Martin is what I said to you elsewhere in response.

Oh my oh my did I hit a nerve. Mr Whiteley lives in another ward alright but a ward of Knutsford not of Wilmslow. I do not speak as a politician but as Jill Public, disenfranchised,disgruntled and just plain sick of the way Cheshire East Council is run. Time for a change. A transfusion of fresh blood from independently minded people who will listen to their voters and not just tow their party line.
As to fact Martin we in Dean Row sat and listened to our dear leader Cllr Jones and were told that Adlington Road fields would not be built upon. Now that IS hypocrisy.

Martin, you cannot dispute that Cllr Michael Jones proclaimed to the assembled at Dean Row Village Hall on the 20/4/12 that Adlington Road fields would not be built on.
Cllr Whiteley expressed the view to Dean Row residents that he would fight to prevent development there. Yes, Paul did speak out to the SPB meeting at Macc TH that he was against developing the site. However, at the full council meeting, 27/2/13, Cllr Whiteley along with all his other Conservative colleagues present, including the other Wilmslow councillors, Menlove and Barton, voted against an amendment to take all the Green Belt and Safeguarded sites in the proposed Local Plan, including Adlington Road, out of the LP. These are recorded facts, not conjecture. These are recorded acts of betrayal to the electorate by its elected representatives. Fact!
RoW does not have a problem with CEC candidates living outside the town; however a certain Conservative councillor has indeed sought to question RoWs Toni Fox living just a mile from Dean Row, when he himself lives other than where he is seeking election.
Living in and shouting from a glass house, one should be extra mindful.
I will leave Toni to answer your jibe about her previous Handforth activity. Our responses from the Dean Row electors thus far, is that they do not have a problem with such matters; what they want, what they desperately need is to have a councillor listening to their concerns, seeking to rectify those concerns, the concerns they tell us that have been ignored for a long time.
The doorstep issues raised with Toni and RoW appear to be some of long term neglect by............ and sheer frustration for the voters because of that neglect. And, believe it or not, it is life long Conservatives who are uttering these dissatisfactions to RoW.

I think we are clear that Paul Whitely lives in Lower Peover and I live in Handforth - in the south ward which abuts Dean Row ward as a matter of fact.

Indeed Councillor Watkins, I have made comments regarding the misleading, inaccurate and downright untruths being broadcast by the Conservative candidates in Handforth.

Why?

Because until the election I am still a Councillor on Handforth Parish Council in addition to being a candidate for the Dean Row Ward in Wilmslow and as such I feel I have a responsibility to Handforth's residents to inform them of the facts and the truth.

Folk are sick of lies and deceit.

If elected I will bring this ethos with me in representing the residents of the Dean Row Ward.

Intense lobbying to stand again? Really? No facts.
Helping countless residents each month? Are you absolutely sure? No facts.
Sorry Cllr, simply not convinced. You let us down.
Have supported conservatives for decades, but you and Cllr Jones said one thing and did another. You really should not be standing again.
Toni Fox deserves a chance. You do not.

I remember towards the end of last year sitting in Macclesfield Town Hall at a Cheshire East Strategic Planning Board meeting that was to decide the fate of Dean Row’s ‘safeguarded’ green fields on Adlington Road here in Wilmslow.
For two years prior to this meeting local residents had fought against these fields being developed. The Cheshire East Local Plan had determined that Wilmslow should provide 400 new homes between now and 2030. Local residents spent nearly two years researching the new housing planning applications, brownfield sites and likely ‘windfall’ opportunities. They discovered that Wilmslow has over 130,000 square feet of empty office space which could be converted into new homes (and there are Government plans and approvals available to allow this to happen).
The research showed that, discounting the office space available, Wilmslow was still on course to deliver 820 new homes – more than twice the agreed target! Our Councillors were constantly fed the facts at every County level.
What did the East Cheshire Strategic Planning Committee decide?
Well several representatives of one of the major political parties ‘sat on their hands’ during the whole hearing asking no questions. When it came to the vote their hands went straight up voting as one following a party line.
The Chairman representing the same party and a Ward far from Wilmslow gave the motion his casting vote and 208 houses are now starting to violate Adlington Road’s and Dean Row's green fields.
It is hard to believe that before this appalling decision was made some of our Independent Councillors, at an earlier County planning meeting, had tabled an amendment to the Local Plan to take Wilmslow’s green belt sites and the Adlington Road site out from the Local Plan.
On a named vote Councillors representing Wilmslow had the opportunity to vote for the amendment but chose to vote along the party line and against saving Adlington Road!
Why?
We were told by our Government and Local Government leaders that the KEY element of the Local Plan was that constituents would be listened to! The residents of Wilmslow proved that double the homes required would be available. Our Councillors were told this over and over again! Did they listen? Would that be a ‘no’ then!
In the Local Plan's consultancy questionnaire 84% of the residents of Dean Row voted against developing the Adlington Road fields. Safeguarded land should only be used when there is exceptional need and when other alternatives do not exist.
We proved to our Councillors that Wilmslow's target of 400 homes had been more than doubled. Adlington Road could and should have been saved.
Did they listen? No they did not.
So welcome to the Borough Council Toni Fox!

Firstly to put it out in the open I will be voting Conservative in the GE, I feel that is right. However, come the local and town elections I certainly will not. The people supposed to be looking after our local rights and representing our local opinions seem intent on ignoring them for reasons that leave a lot to the imagination as plain facts point in the direction they should have taken.
Local developers have more say in this constituency than the general taxpayer, with all these planned developments together with the 1000+ homes Stockport are building at the BAE site at Woodford we may as well sign up to be part of Greater Manchester as there will be no separation between us.
I am quite frankly shocked that this candidate lives so far away, how can he have a vested interest? And as for Cllr Jones? How can anyone in CE trust a word he says.

He says: "First elected to Dean Row in 1988, I have been a passionate advocate for the local residents ever since - on ALL the issues that affect our area."
"I am doing everything in the power of a local councillor to stand up for local residents' views regarding protection of the Dean Row greenbelt and future development."

He forgot all about that when he voted with the party and against the express wishes of his electorate and removed Green Belt protection from areas in Wilmslow and Handforth.
http://bit.ly/1DlRiwX

Time for a change, time for someone local and in touch to fill this position.

Reading the above comments one would believe the only matter that has been at issue in the Dean Row Ward recently is the Adlington Road housing development.

This is not so, as there is the ongoing “Save the Unicorn” campaign which has been publicised in the local press and in the wilmslow.co.uk newsletter.

The only political support received in the fight against Hickory Smokehouse’s proposals for our local pub has been from the Ward Councillor, Paul Whiteley, who had already lodged his objection to the planning application before we approached him.

His interest, advice and many years of experience in the affairs of the council, particularly in planning matters, has been of great help.

It is unlikely that we would have achieved the Unicorn's listing as an Asset of Community Value by CEC were it not for his input.

I have to say that Toni Fox’s statement about living in a ward that “abuts” Dean Row cheapens the debate somewhat. Neither she nor Councillor Whiteley live in Dean Row, a fact that is entirely irrelevant in the age of the motor vehicle.

If only Paul Whiteley could have given the a little of the same support to the residents of Dean Row regarding the Adlington Road fields as he did to saving the Unicorn then opinions expressed here would be very different.

I support saving the Unicorn but the outcome of that does not affect the future of Wilmslow in the way that building on our green fields does and a there is a huge difference in Toni Fox living in Handforth and Paul Whiteley living outside in the borough of Knutsford. The mayhem that travel, schooling, medical facilties will become when all the thousands of houses are built around here wlll not affect him, but they will affect Toni Fox and there lies the difference.