Email corespondence with Trevor Prowse... to date

Dear Mr R,

Thank you for your eMail. I am currently seeking advice on whether the information which you request is publicly available and will advise you accordingly.

Yours sincerely

Trevor Prowse

From: Phil R
Sent: 23 December 2008 17:51
To: Trevor Prowse
Cc: Steve Atkinson
Subject: Fwd: Proposed travellers' transit site - Groby

Dear Mr Prowse.

I am contacting you - again - to see if you intend to reply to my email dated 21 December (see below).

The courtesy of at least an acknowledgment wouldn't go amiss.

Kind regards.

Yours sincerely,

Phil R

Groby



Begin forwarded message:

From: Phil R
Date: 21 December 2008 22:31:49 GMT
To: Trevor.Prowse@hinckley-bosworth.gov.uk
Cc: Steve.Atkinson@Hinckley-Bosworth.gov.uk
Subject: Proposed travellers' transit site - Groby

Dear Mr Prowse.

Thank you for your letter regarding the proposed travellers' 'caravan' site in Groby - I thought it was a 'transit' site.

I propose to focus on the issues regarding the proposed site in the coming weeks - both before and after the 20th January (with a couple of exceptions, which I'll come to shortly).

However, I must take immediate issue with the references in your letter regarding Councillor Batty.

I fail to see how Mr Batty can be held to account by the Council when all he has done is to react on behalf of his constituents to information placed in the public domain by the Leicester Mercury.

It is a matter of record that Mr Batty did not attend the confidential meeting on 20 November. Therefore, I fail to see how Mr Batty can be held to account regarding the confidentiality of the information provided at that meeting.

Any self-respecting councillor would respond to serious issues brought by outside sources to their attention and to that of his or her electorate. First and foremost, the councillor is the representative of the people who elected him - not the representative of the Council to the public.

Any action against Councillor Batty will further embroil the Borough Council in perceived Big Brother types of activity against the Groby public and its democratically elected representative.

You are making a grave mistake in publicly persecuting our democratically elected representative (using Council funds) and would be far better served attempting to assuage - or indeed by removing - the serious and substantial concerns of a public you are supposed to serve and to which you have a duty of care.


I have yet to receive a response from the Council's customer services team to my request on 18th December for a list of Councillors who attended the workshop on 20th November. Although the information provided in that workshop may be currently confidential, I would be extremely surprised if the same level of secrecy applied to a list of attendees.

May I ask you to provide me with the same, either outside or under the Freedom of Information Act. If you can't, I would like to know why.


Similarly, I would like to know the areas of residence for the Council's senior planning officers responsible for this list of potential sites - not their names or their addresses; just the name of their local village or town.

If Councillors who will eventually vote on this list of proposed sites have to declare their interests, I don't see why we shouldn't have the same degree of clarity from the officers who proposed the list in the first place.


Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council has a lot of work to do in the Groby area if it is to live up to its claim of managing 'A Borough to be proud of'. I sincerely hope that the Council's actions over the next few weeks will substantiate that claim.

Kind regards.

Yours sincerely,

Phil R
Groby