The people of Ivybridge were so enthusiastic to get to the bottom of the issue of an incinerator in their town that they turned up in their hoards to the public meeting on Saturday, November 21, with some even being turned away. There was late entry from the Viridor, which included the new girl, and the revelation of a perceived ‘conflict of interest’ by one of the town councillors.
After spending three weeks saying they weren’t sending anyone to the Ivybridge incinerator public meeting, Viridor, who is building the incinerator and you’d think would have an interest in being there, managed to get the new girl – she’d only been in the job two weeks – as one of the company’s representative on the panel.
According to (Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate) Luke Pollard’s write up of the meeting “a number of residents raised the conflict of interests between Ivybridge’s local councillor on Devon County Council, Cllr Roger Croad, being at the same time the Executive member responsible for waste, the chair of the South West Waste Partnership that is looking for a new location for an incinerator and Ivybridge’s Town Councillor who should be opposing the plans”.
Turns out Cllr Croad was taunting the audience, too, from (Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate) Anna Pascoe’s #NO2incineration Twitter stream. Unfortunately, the 140 characters couldn’t fit what he was taunting the audience with – we hope it was a rubber chicken.
More than anything it seems a victory for real public involvement in their local issues – democracy happens in a church hall on a wet Saturday afternoon. Again from the #NO2incineration Twitter stream: “annapascoe Audience has done more research than the councillors and company reps on the panel #NO2incineration”
Pop along to the Eco Ivy site to find out more, and read the open letter to Viridor.
Check out the #NO2incineration Twitter stream.
(image: an artists impression of an incinerator – the curvier the friendlier, apparently)
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