A town hall’s legal chief says that Tameside’s council leader did not breach the code of conduct when she said a controversial garden village scheme would be ‘rammed down’ the throat of opponents.
At a full council meeting on Tuesday night, Labour leader Brenda Warrington hit back at the ‘Brenda the Bulldozer’ nickname given to her by the Tory opposition over the Godley Green project.
The scheme, which has been submitted for planning approval by the authority, would see 2,150 homes as well as local centres, retail and commercial sites developed on green belt land in Hyde.
During the budget meeting Coun Warrington said: “Godley Green, I make no mistake, I will be on that first bulldozer and that is a promise.
“I will be on that bulldozer that actually starts to dig up ready to build houses on Godley Green and believe me it will be rammed down your throat.
“It really will.”
Following the meeting her comments outraged residents opposed to the garden village project, which has garnered more than 3,400 objections.
A number of people subsequently submitted complaints to the council over Coun Warrington’s use of language, arguing she had breached councillors’ code of conduct.
One resident’s complaint stated that her behaviour was ‘not befitting of a local councillor’ and during the meeting she had acted in an ‘insensitive and damaging way’.
However Sandra Stewart, Tameside’s head of governance and pensions, who is also the borough’s solicitor and statutory monitoring officer, has ruled there is no case to answer.
“Councillors should be able to express their opinions and concerns in forceful terms,” she stated in her written response.
“The code is not intended to stifle the expressions of passion and frustration that often accompany discussions about local authority business.
“Accordingly having considered your complaint, I have determined this is not a matter falling with the jurisdiction set out by the Localism Act 2011 because whilst Coun Warrington’s comments may have offended you and many others they are not in breach of the statutory Code of Conduct as they fall within legitimate freedom of expression and need to be heard and understood in the context of the whole meeting.
“Accordingly, I do not intend to take this matter any further.”
If a complaint had been upheld it could have led to the member apologising, formal investigation with the standards sub-committee, or no further action.
A complainant who feels that the authority has failed to deal with their complaint properly can complain to the Local Government Ombudsman.
Following the meeting, Coun Warrington issued a statement in which she said: “Of all the issues we discussed last night from the budget to vulnerable people – the opposition choose to shine a light on this, demonstrating their lack of care about a whole range of issues.
“Their creation of Brenda the Bulldozer shows their disrespect for something which deserves serious debate.
“After four years of personal abuse and harassment on this matter, I aimed my comments at those councillors who have been personally abusive, disrespectful and disingenuous in this debate.
“Clearly my comments were never directed at anyone else and any attempt by the opposition to suggest this is the case is a further example of their twisting of the facts.
“The real issue at stake here, is the opposition’s role in creating the problem but not supporting the solution.
“We are having to build houses on the greenbelt at Godley Green because of government imposed housing targets.
“Their government is forcing us to do it, but they are opposing it locally, that is duplicitous and dishonest.
“To meet that target we could throw up lots of high density, low quality homes, and again here government policy would put other parts of the greenbelt at risk.
“We will not do that, our plan is to grow the existing community into a new village with high quality homes, school places, GP provision, transport and community facilities.
“Creating jobs for local people and opening up green spaces for our community.
“Godley Green is the only way to meet the government imposed target. I commit to making it a genuinely sustainable village community.”
Under the garden village plans the homes would be built to the north of Mottram Old Road, as well as ‘local centres’ which would include up to 1,300 sq m of retail, 1,600 sq m of commercial uses and 1,000 sq m of local community uses.
The properties will be split across two villages divided by Godley Brook, with 1,250 dwellings in the west and 900 homes in the east of the site.
According to the planning application, construction would take place over a 15 year period, with 102 homes intended to be delivered within 2022/23.
But even if the plans are approved by the council’s planning committee later this year, they will then go to the Secretary of State who will make the final decision on whether to allow it to go ahead.
