Deferral on Kingsmead land decision

Excellent news - Kingsmead has won a brief reprieve, thanks to the sheer number of written objections, and the huge support for the online petition.

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Discussion by Executive members of council proposals to appropriate land at Kingsmead for planning purposes has been deferred until the meeting on Thursday 21 June.

Originally the Executive was due to consider the plan at its meeting on 31st May.

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Gilbey slams the gutless

But there's no hint who he might be talking about. Or what they've done.

At the recent Executive meeting, Canterbury Council Leader John Gilbey laid into someone or other. He was clearly disappointed that they weren't there to take their medicine - maybe their invitation didn't arrive in time.

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Vickery-Jones showered with praise

Now here's a funny thing – at Canterbury City Council Executive on 29th March, the leader of the council, Cllr Gilbey, went out of his way to congratulate Cllr Vickery-Jones on his recent successes.

The first of these was the chaos that resulted from the re-routing of traffic around the Westgate Towers, which will probably soon be renamed the Vickery Victory Arch.

The second praiseworthy achievement was Cllr Vickery-Jones' masterful and diplomatic handling of Tesco's threatened invasion of Herne. John Gilbey gave a moving account of Cllr Vickery-Jones' single-handed triumph over the retail giant:

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Council refuses to back village green status bid

A campaign group will not have the backing of the council in its efforts to have The Downs in Herne Bay certified as a village green.

The Save Our Downs group has been urging the council to support the application, which if successful would mean that the area would be open to the public for free forever and that any development which takes place would have to be in the interests of the public.

A public inquiry is due to take place at the end of November to determine whether the 72-acre seafront area will be designated a village green. Kent County Council is the registration authority which will decide The Downs' fate, but Canterbury City Council owns the land and will not be backing village green status.

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Making allowances

Council leader John Gilbey once again tops the table for take-home pay among city councillors, new allowances figures show. Mr Gilbey, who represents Blean Forest, earned £32,382, more than half of which came from his special allowance of £21,361 as council boss. The Tory's expenses included £2,000 in mileage and £570 for his mobile phone.

Conservative vice chairman of the council's executive and Seasalter representative Jean Law was runner up with £17,235 – her basic allowance of £4,710 topped up by special responsibility allowances totalling £8,502.

Executive member Peter Vickery-Jones, who represents Herne and Broomfield, came next – his £13,093 including £5,505 in special responsibility allowances and £408 for his mobile phone.

Lib Dem leader Alex Perkins, who represents Wincheap, earned £12,378.23 including £6,611.78 for special responsibility, while former Labour leader Julia Seath, who did not stand in this year's elections but used to represent Harbour in Whitstable, claimed £6,134.

The figures were released by the council last week and broken down into basic allowance, special responsibility, travel and subsistence and PC allowance for the financial year to 31 March 2011.

HB Times 9th June 2011

Comprehensive Spending Review: reactions

HB Gazette 28th Oct 2010

Leader's fury at jobs cuts query

Politician calls for depopulation. World trembles.

The Lib Dems have accused you of being a climate change denier. Is that true?

It's not. And denier is an insult because of Holocaust deniers. As a geologist I know about ancient climates and where the atmosphere has been going for hundreds and thousands of years. Yes, there is an impact that man is having on the climate but there’s not much we can do about it, because we're looking at the symptom and not the cause, which is that there are too many people on the planet using up the natural resources. While people are trying to save trees, they aren’t looking at the population issue. Man is affecting the planet on such a scale because of sheer numbers, and that's what needs focusing on.

HB Times interview with Cllr Gilbey, 15th July 2010

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If you would like to find out more about the thoughtful elimination of the human race, and Cllr Gilbey isn't available, have a look at The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. They advocate phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed, arguing that "crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense".

Myself, I think that smarter actions, rather than fewer people, would be a better way of being "less dense".

Politician calls politician "political". Nation laughs, yawns.

You have ferocious exchanges with Lib Dem leader Alex Perkins. What do you think of him?

Alex is the opposite of me, in that he's totally political and everything he does is with an eye to the next election. I speak as I see and try to be honest, with the objective of getting things done, and Alex can be economical with the truth sometimes. On a personal level I have no problem with him, and I admire the fact he can talk the hind leg off a donkey and sound plausible. He has difficulties with his group, because they are all split and my group isn’t.

HB Times interview with Cllr Gilbey, 15th July 2010

High maintenance councillors pocket £386k

Expenses, expenses - dontcha just love them? No suggestion here of unseemly duck houses or whatnot, I believe this is all above-board, as-per-normal stuff. It all mounts up pretty quickly, far exceeding the projected savings from museum closures, for example. But it's the salaries that bug me. And Mr Parris has a point.

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