Furnace Green Councillors Welcome Completed Tunnel Drainage Works



Furnace Green's Councillor Carol Eade at the resurfaced Tunnel

The installation of a major new drainage system in the main Railway tunnel between Furnace Green and Maidenbower has been completed on schedule, and in time for the start of the new half-term at Oriel High.

Furnace Green Councillors Carol Eade and Duncan Crow had been working with West Sussex County Council, Crawley Borough Council and Network Rail since last autumn, to get a permanent solution to the flooding that had dogged the site. The wettest winter on record had made an occasional flooding problem into a virtually permanent flood since the exceptional rains started in December.

Furnace Green Councillor Carol Eade said “I am delighted that our efforts have paid off. Duncan Crow and I invested a lot of time and effort to bring this about as we recognised it’s important to the local community, many of whom got in touch with us. Not only have we now got an excellent drainage system that has already proved its effectiveness in last week’s rain, we’ve had it completely resurfaced too.”

Councillor Duncan Crow said “It is great news that Volker Fitzpatrick (Network Rail’s contractor) has completed the major drainage scheme in time for the school going back. While affecting many residents of Furnace Green and Maidenbower, it had especially impacted Oriel High pupils, parents and staff from Furnace Green and further afield over the last few weeks. I am very pleased that the efforts of both Carol Eade and myself achieved such a positive outcome on behalf of our residents.”

My statement to the Crawley News after £1152 a meeting UKIP Councillor claims "smear campaign"

UKIP's hypocrisy is almost off the scale

 

A journalist from the Crawley News has contacted me to say that UKIP Crawley Councillor Karl Williamson has accused me of a smear campaign, and that my original post exposing his appalling attendence and his £1152 a meeting, was offensive. He also stated that Cllr Williamson is not intending to resign. He is apparently considering legal action against myself, as well as another Councillor who tweeted a link to my blog. Below is my response I sent to the Crawley News. I appreciate they won't print all of it but I think it useful for my entire response to be seen so that context can be seen for any selective quote that might be used. Thank you for all the good messages of support I have received on this. I genuinely believe the residents of Southgate are getting a very raw deal and deserve better. 

 

 "I view it as an insult to the residents of Southgate if he does not resign and seek re-election as a UKIP candidate. When he defected to UKIP in July, his argument at the time for not resigning and standing as a UKIP candidate was the cost of a by-election. However, resigning now and holding a by-election this May would be at the same time as the existing Council election, and at no extra cost whatsoever to the taxpayer. Southgate residents should be allowed an opportunity to vote on his record and for or against his new political party. Southgate did NOT elect a UKIP Councillor and residents are being disenfranchised by the status quo.

He should of course resign because of his poor attendance and no obvious evidence of him performing the role in recent weeks and months.

Karl Williamson's suggestion of a smear campaign by myself and being offensive is ridiculous and clearly a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the real story which is how much taxpayers money he has received for attending so few meetings. I have reported nothing but facts regarding his attendance and allowances and would not intend to cause any offence to anyone by what I write. Given that UKIP and Cllr Williamson like to publicly criticise Councillors of other parties for the allowances they receive and infer that other Councillors are only in it for the money, it is right that UKIP's only ever Councillor in Crawley comes under scrutiny on this very subject. 

There is total and blatant hypocrisy here and it is right to expose it, however uncomfortable that may be for UKIP and Cllr Williamson. When 'he' recently wrote (many believed was written by Lee Gilroy) about "cosy allowances" that other Councillors were receiving in 'his' Crawley Observer newspaper column, he opened himself up to scrutiny on this topic. At £512 an hour and £1152 a meeting, I put it to you that no Councillor's allowances are as cosy as his! In the recent Hayward’s Heath County Council by-election in December, UKIP put out a leaflet with a big strapline of "Cut Councillor Allowances" at the same time their only Councillor in the whole of the north of West Sussex was receiving more in allowances for the work he puts in than any other Councillor in the whole of Crawley, Horsham and Mid-Sussex. The hypocrisy and lack of integrity of UKIP is absolutely staggering.  

Given that Karl Williamson as a Councillor has a chequered history of making false allegations and complaints, including Standards complaints against a third of all other Crawley Borough Councillors (of which not one has ever been upheld) I view his threats of legal action as yet another in a long line of attempts to bully other Councillors. I will not be bullied into silence as the public have the right to know the work rate (or likely complete lack of in his case) of a Councillor.

Please note that my blog articles featuring Cllr Williamson relate only in connection with his capacity as a Councillor and as a member of UKIP. I would not normally comment about where any Councillor goes on holiday or spends their time/lives as it is not anyone's business but theirs. However, when a Councillor appears to be absent over a sustained period and not performing the role (but still claiming the allowance) and when other Councillors mention that they believe he is abroad much of the time, it then becomes a matter of public interest. Los Angeles has been mentioned to me by other Councillors and it is perfectly reasonable for me to pose the question of residency. I believed the photo I used to have been taken in LA and the other guys in it to be from LA. However, as I could not be certain of this (and I was hardly going to phone Karl Williamson up and ask him, especially if he was in LA and the call charge is high) I changed the caption description very soon after publishing to ensure I have written nothing that could be inaccurate.

 I am regularly at the town hall every week and yet in the last eight months, I have seen Cllr Karl Williamson myself on just two occasions - once in September and once in December. He can not justify his lack of action as a Councillor and he has no valid reason for not stepping down. If he wanted to have moral legitimacy as a UKIP Councillor, he could resign and contest his Council seat under the banner of his new political party so that Southgate residents get what they vote for, not the sham they have now."

UKIP Crawley Councillor threatens legal action after £512 an hour exposure

Say no to UKIP legal threat bullying tactics

Email sent yesterday evening by UKIP Crawley Councillor Karl Williamson.

From: "Williamson, Karl" <Karl.Williamson@crawley.gov.uk>
Date: 14 Feb 2014 19:25
Subject: Twitter
To: "Peck, Duncan" <Duncan.Peck@crawley.gov.uk>
Cc: "Harris, Lee" <Lee.Harris@crawley.gov.uk>, "Brown, Ann-Maria" <Ann-Maria.Brown@crawley.gov.uk>, "chairman.crawleyukip@gmail.com" <chairman.crawleyukip@gmail.com>, "Bloom, Howard" <Howard.Bloom@crawley.gov.uk>

Duncan,

Your recent 'tweet' from your Councillor twitter account - Cllr_Peck (see attached picture) where you spread untruths about me living in Los Angeles is totally unacceptable. Your posting is false, indefensible and defamatory about me.

Under English Libel laws, it has been established that a defamatory statement appearing on the internet is published at the place it is downloaded and subsequently read. Your twitter account is freely accessible within the UK, and as such is subject to the laws of defamation within this jurisdiction.

Now that you are on notice, please provide:

1) Your undertaking to immediately remove the defamatory information from your twitter account;

2) Your undertaking not to continue posting false, indefensible and defamatory information about me;

Please confirm your agreement to the above by midday Saturday, 15 February 2014.

Should you choose to ignore this request,  I will have no option but to instruct my lawyer to take further action against you and to seek the costs for doing so.

Regards

Karl

Cllr Karl Williamson
UKIP
Southgate Ward

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have always taken a very dim view of bullying and will not tolerate it when I see it. My own experience is that bullies like to dish it out but cannot take criticism, and that they do not like exposure of their bullying behaviour. The email reproduced above that was sent last night feels to me like bullying. However the "Duncan" the email was sent to is not myself, but Maidenbower Councillor Duncan Peck.

 

The only thing that Duncan did was to tweet a link to my blog article that highlighted the shockingly low number of meetings that UKIP Councillor for Southgate Karl Williamson had attended over the last year. I calculated that he had attended 8 meetings that amounted to a total of 18 hours of meetings in one year, and that he had received £9220.25 from Crawley taxpayers for this, with no obvious evidence of other activity. This equated to £1152 a meeting or £512 an hour.
 

Simply posting a link on Twitter to my blog post has generated the ridiculous email above, which had the following notable people copied in for effect to make it look important - the Council's Leader, Chief Executive, and Head of Legal and Democratic Services; and also copied in was UKIP Crawley Chairman Lee Gilroy. It is my personal opinion that this email is an attempt to bully my colleague. Concerns about bullying do seem to follow some people around.

It is of course completely absurd to suggest that asking if someone lives in Los Angeles could somehow constitute defamation.  I can confirm that I do not live in Los Angeles (or spend most of my spare time there rather than in the UK) but if anyone were to ask if I do,  I would not react badly and threaten them with legal action! 

I presume that Duncan will treat the above threat with the contempt it deserves, and ignore it. If he does, I guess that Karl Williamson “will have no option but to instruct my (his) lawyer to take further action against you (Duncan Peck) and to seek the costs for doing so”.

It will be interesting to see whether Cllr Williamson follows through on this threat or whether it is all bluster and idle threats. While I strongly suspect it will be the latter, I guess that anyone who receives £512 an hour could afford a pretty good lawyer!

I hadn't intended to write about this again but I will not stand by while UKIP (the email is written in his capacity as a UKIP Councillor) make such threats.  I repeat my call from yesterday and publicly call for the resignation of Cllr Karl Williamson so that Southgate can elect a Councillor who could easily prove they are performing the role and representing residents. Southgate  continues to be badly let down by UKIP and deserves better.

Update 18th February - My response to the Crawley News after UKIP have no answer but to claim a "smear campaign"