Let's be clear

Now please remember that the whole CNQ saga and the road, college/ five acres etc was started a long time before we became the cabinet. Wasn't our plan , wasn't our wish , was an inherited project already way down the line. Personally, I would never have even started the project. However we have to face what we have before us , so we asked for an open review. It lasts over a year takes loads of evidence independently , comes up with recommendations and we publicly state that we cannot see there being any more road funding and say that based on the review we will :

1. Proceed with planning applications for the development of work units/live work units on plots F1 and F2 which do not appear to be contentious.

2. Use the findings from this inquiry to consider how Cinderford Northern Quarter sits in the new Local Plan 2041 and consider the impact of all relevant changes to legislation, regulations, and best practice guidance.


3. Engage with local educational and construction organisations to see if there is an opportunity to work in partnership with the Council in delivering residential development in a way that improves its viability and is better aligned to the challenging land conditions. This might include nonstandard construction /low impact homes or even student accommodation on the site . Cabinet believes that by using those educational organisations. their apprentices, their trainees, and our local companies we can deliver true community housing and business premises while at the same time giving those students an opportunity to learn hands on.
This is very much aligned to the education led regeneration project we wish to achieve.

4. Engage with Steam Mills primary school and the local education authorities to see if there is an appetite for discussion of relocation of the school to the Cinderford Northern Quarter in line with the current road availability. In the short term we will also engage with Gloucestershire Highways and County Council to request a 20mph zone outside the current school zone during school hours and furthermore begin discussions as to whether ALL forest of dean schools should have an automatic 20mph zone outside their gates during school times.

5. Engage with Glos Col, Hartpury College, and University, all our local secondary schools and our colleagues at Wye Valley Tourism to develop the prospect of a wildlife/environment training and visitor centre on the rest of the site.

Nothing pre determined, nothing already planned, just an effort to see whats possible.


Now most people are seeing this as positive, a new direction, a way forward and actually very much in line with all that the opponents of the sites development have been asking for , demanding for a decade. Nothing that isn't rather good . local growth for young people, accepting all the ground condition issues and wanting to celebrate both environment and heritage.

The Greens response to the press release ? a simple quote "dream on".
Dream on ladies and gentlemen, dream on. Dream on if you actually want any say in what happens, dream on if you want any growth, any jobs or any education, dream on if anything you want to do or achieve doesn't at first fit their view of the world and what it should be, Dream on if you want to retain Cannop ponds because they believe rewilding would be better, dream on if you don't want a new eco exemplar town that will eat up any hope of social housing or investment anywhere else in the Forest due to the huge costs their demands place on developers and builders. Dream on if you think they will tell you this before the election, they tell us they have more sense than that
Dream on if you
think these people are the cosy, somewhat eccentric cardigan wearing environmentalists of the past.
Dream on of you want to accept climate emergency and want to deal with it but also deal with housing, with jobs , with transport. Because those issues will always be secondary
Dream on if you don't think that locally at least the Green party are a funded and drilled organisation, determined to disrupt and to enforce their views on every aspect of your life.
Dream on Dream on Dream on.

Im sick of trying to reach out to them, they are deceitful ( and i shall be outing one of their Berry Hill candidates soon for the bullshit he's spouted about me just because of a housing application near where he lives, how dare you try to damage my name and my families name in this village with your nasty vicious rumour mongering) .

I sacked two Greens from Cabinet because they refused to support the local plan strategy, democratically voted for by all council . I had already taken planning off one of the Green Cabinet members because of the complete mess he made of the previous local plan strategy. Instead of listening to parish councils, businesses and developers, he instead pressed ahead trying to force a SUPER GREEN TOWN on Churcham. On Flood land, against the will of the people and at what have been massive cost to any developer. It came to a head when other Cabinet members insisted I got shot of them when both Greens suggested they were supportive of the draining of Cannop ponds for rewilding options. I sacked them because above all , they refused to make public their views on both subjects for political gain. That goes against everything we are about .My Cabinet felt they could not trust them any longer. I gave them every opportunity, liked both and considered them friends . They made me look a total fool for trusting them and yes , perhaps I’m over sensitive . Ask my cabinet members, ask them if you think Im lying ask them.
They were sacked, not for having different views or opinions but for not being open with the public about those views. They believe silence is the better policy. I and my cabinet believe honesty is.
Ask any Green candidate on their view on Extinction Rebellion, On Cannop Ponds, on Rewilding and on a new town or where it should be ( and look them in the eye when they answer;
But Dream on? So before the conversation has even begun, before any proposals are put forward before any projects, any opportunities are developed we have a closed shut down,
Destined again to rally the troops, those saviours of the Dean, the self-appointed trustees of our Forest.
The ones who will show you copies of maps from half a century ago, will speak about bats and butterflies and just because you want to also talk about jobs education and housing, will paint you as either stupid, a liar or corrupt or a combination of the three.
Destined for challenge and courts, rather than discussion and hope.
I may not be re-elected
I may not be leader of this brilliant council
But I'm telling you all now, The Forest of Deans Greens are damaging and dangerous.