Humble Pie Over Danny K’s Coate Road Development Comments Rant? Unlikely!

Oh Deirdre me, we can’t all be as perfect and flawless as Councillor Iain Wallis, and as the Dalek said climbing off the dustbin, we all make mistakes!

Cream crackered after my standard early shift, on Tuesday I rushed out a knee-jerk reaction to Danny Kruger’s comments against the permitted Coate Road development, because I knew other local media would also jump on the bandwagon; you have to be quick to beat the big guns.

It has since come to light, thanks to a civilised reply from councillor Judy Rose, some of the content is slightly misinformed, but while I’m willing to admit it, if you think I’m eating humble pie you can think again! There remains a more general crucial point, I figure, even if some facts about the development itself weren’t, precisely, on the ball.

I might just nibble the crust, if humble pie comes with a crust, or is it more like a shepherd’s pie? Either way it’s unlikely I’ll dive right in, least of all apologise, that’s sooo not me! Much of the content was taken from a BBC article, and what can I say? I pay my licence fee, local media source content from the Tory-bias Beeb, at least I tarnish mine with opinion rather than lift it wholesale. 

It was Danny’s u-turned angle which had me suspicious, it seemed now he was in support of the campaign against it, as before this storm in a teacup I too was dead against the location of this development and signed petitions against it. But the reasoning for Tuesday’s article was my dubiousness of anything which comes out of Danny’s silver-spooned cakehole; can you really blame me for that?!

Justified, I believe, after his several chauvinistic and homophobic comments. Comments which I called him out for, and via Councilor Iain Wallis’s wonky peepers, constituted me being “unpleasant,” I quote. Trying to twist my melon around this, ol’ Danny K can cast any archaic and deplorable views he feels fit to do so, and use his position as MP to preach his narrow-minded religious dogma, but if I question him for it, I’m the one being “unpleasant?” Okay, that sounds fair!

“I’m afraid you’ve really got this wrong,” Judy expressed, “Not about Kruger, although I find his conversion to opposing the 5-year housing land supply a rather dramatic and convenient vote-solidifying change-of-heart, but about the very real concerns regarding the Coate Road development.” Which is fair enough, and enlightening too. For it is far nicer to address such corrections to us directly, rather than Mr Wallis, who opted to post his hatred only on his own biassed Facebook group, Devizes Issues, of which anyone who disagrees is promptly banned, including us.  

This practice of slagging us off behind our backs is standard for this particular councillor, and far from the first time he has done so. Why he does this I can only speculate neither wish to dwell on, but being he recently posted a claim Wiltshire Council is about to produce an events guide, (obviously at taxpayer’s expense) seems he is determined to attempt to wreck our good reputation, or ruin us all together. I’d imagine because he has no control over us. It is vindictive and spiteful, and given such circumstances it is evident, much less blatantly obvious, his intention wasn’t to correct us, rather deliberately discredit us.

Back on point, Judy explained, “The traffic from this housing estate would mostly use London Road, or rat-run via Coate to access the Swindon road. Adding potentially some 4-500 cars to that stream of traffic is a nightmare scenario by any account, which is why it was refused last time round, and nothing has changed in the interim. More affordable (and we can get into precisely what that is supposed to mean on another occasion, as in my view, it frequently is anything but!) housing is desperately needed, but there will be precious little of it on this or any other site if the developers do their usual cavalier approach and whittle down the numbers to as near zero as they can!”

“I have been on the Neighbourhood Plan team for over 10 years, and the most frustrating thing is that we cannot get the numbers of affordable housing up because developers just will not build them, so please don’t imagine that if this scheme went ahead, there would be a sudden upsurge in their numbers! The developer may well be bragging about 30% affordable housing, but we’ve been here before with other developer promises, and I’ve yet to see any dramatic increase in numbers of so-called affordable housing! Traffic jams would certainly increase, but not affordable housing numbers!”

And herein was my point, if confused with the details of the development itself, that affordable, and by this I mean it by the actuality of the word, affordable, is needed. If I was trashed by Iain for stating 10% was the minimal requirement, I did clearly say that was a national requirement, not a county one, leading me to ponder if it was deliberate skewering of my words, or if he simply missed that point, either of which suggests I wasn’t the only one who made a mistake! But whatever, it is obvious this percentage needs to be increased significantly by Wiltshire Council, otherwise they’re building homes only the few can afford, and not enough for those who cannot; Tory economics.

Ergo my suspicions this is deliberately done to uphold the conservative stranglehold on our constituency at a time they fear their national level corruption will come back to haunt them, even here, is, I believe, reasonable to assume. Fair to note, this is also the reason while Conservative MPs will fight between themselves over the boundary changes in the next General Election, as Chippenham MP Michelle Donelan knows full well her seat is safer if the Devizes parliamentary constituency is merged with hers.

But I want this change as I fear this recession will worsen tenfold if the current thieving parliament continues, and more will be on the streets. I want this change because I want diversity in the age demographic here; it is a nice place to live, this wouldn’t change by allowing younger people to be able to start a home and family here too. But they are driven out by house prices, and this is unfair and morally corrupt. This was my general point, and I believe it is still valid; what is the best Wiltshire can do?

“The best Wiltshire seems to be able to do is to propose a site for social housing at the western end of town where it is not only outside the settlement framework boundary,” Judy continued, “but its location also ignores the other criteria of the current Neighbourhood Plan which stipulates that the town centre, GP Surgeries, major shops and schools should all be within walking distance of any development! At well over a mile from any of these, this site fails, yet it is still likely to go ahead, with increased car usage, mainly because it is a Wilts Council proposal on Wilts Council land!” Does this mean every small village and hamlet will have to be knocked down?! Of course not, if residents cannot walk a mile, they need to rely on an improved bus service; pie in the sky called infrastructure, it works in towns and cities far bigger than ours!

“There are sites that are more appropriate than Coate Road, but they are not coming forward, and it is not unreasonable to assume that this is because the developers wouldn’t make as much profit on affordable builds as they would otherwise.” Once again, the Tory economics, the majority mind-bogglingly voted for!

I thank Judy for filling us in, and explaining this twisted catch 22; I am clearer now, though remain unsatisfied; does this give others reason to hate me? We will always support the needs of the townsfolk and villagers, we would never go against this, and we are back to opposing the Coate Road development again, even if it means agreeing with Danny K!

But this was never, as falsely accused by Councillor Wallis, a personal attack on our homophobic and chauvinistic MP any more than deserved, only pondering why he had changed his view so fiercely on the issue. If, Mr Wallis, you can point out exactly where I have been in any way “unpleasant” as you so boldly put it, and do so in such a place it can be discussed civilly then please do, and I will, unlike you, apologise. But if you continue to unfairly discredit us on a social media site you have deliberately prevented us access to, you will face further criticism, but I love you Mr Wallis, like I love all mankind, and have never verbally attacked you personally, as you have to me; I forgive.

“The original refusal really was all about the traffic, and nothing to do with how any householders would vote,” Judy concluded, “Goodness knows, the majority of folk here who do bother to use the ballot box would vote for a donkey wearing a blue rosette without much further inducement!” 

And thus we go around in circles; expect an unjustified “told you so” grilling from the Devizes führer on his partisanship pile of piffle Facebook page, of which, because of our brute honesty, we cannot respond to, complete with the usual false allegations of victimisation, how we are bullying him and how, Trump-like, we are spreading “fake news.” At least I can admit when I got it wrong, or do we still need to slaughter every flying animal in the area because of an imaginary outbreak of bird flu on the Crammer?!  

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