Council must take green pledge seriously
Your reporting of the Slough BC council tax discussion was excellent and scary journalism.
It captured the dictatorship of the current Labour Party administration of the borough, and the willingness of its leaders to destroy those who cast any hint of doubt over its plans.
Labour Council Leader James Swindlehurst stated: “All the people who choose to leave us, the same fate befalls them all, you never hear of them ever again because the public don’t put their faith in traitors and quitters and splitters.”
It is extraordinary, like a roaring cult leader on top of his tower!
Never mind that the accused fellow Labour councillor was questioning whether it was good for the people of the borough – struggling to survive through COVID –to face the maximum increase in council tax, while a new council palace was being constructed for £39million.
It was treason!
That councillor – Madhuri Bedi - chose to leave the cult.
She is now standing for re-election as an independent – it would be delightful if all other parties stood aside and let her try to win the opportunity to annoy the cult for three more years.
The people of Slough DO want ‘people who stand by their principle(s) ... no matter no tough it is’, but they want this from councillors who want to save our future by becoming a net zero carbon borough as soon as possible, councillors who will stand up for them against corporate bullies and greedy developers, councillors who will support them and their children. They need heroes.
Gordon Moffatt is a hero with his campaigning letter (Viewpoint, March 11).
SBC declared a zero carbon emissions target of 2030 (ZC2030) in December, but has also written a Spatial Strategy completely ignoring the climate and environment emergency, and is busy cutting down trees and shrinking Langley Memorial Park to make Langley High St into a dual carriageway.
They don’t care that this expansion is next to a school and will double the amount of queueing traffic and pollution outside, they don’t care that they are not planning to expand the single lane railway bridge at Langley Station to cope, and they don’t care that the trees and bushes have been destroyed.
Worst of all, they don’t care that the reason for this development – the potential closure of the Market Road bridge due to a new rail link to Heathrow – has NOT yet got planning permission and will probably never get it!
In the Citizen delivered to all Slough residents recently before the May local elections, the council was very pleased with the new developments and redevelopments of old industrial sites it had approved.
We wish them well with all these projects, and hope all these planning approvals were given with requirements for ZC building, ZC heating and top-quality insulation, maybe green roofs and/or solar panels, spaces for play, wild spaces, flower beds, hedgehog highways, walkways, cycle paths, electric car charging points, electric (mini)bus access, multiple new trees etc - to help reach ZC2030.
The council must take all this seriously for all our futures.
We hope so, but we are not – despite the pollution – holding our breath.
DUNCAN BRINDLEY Chair, East Berkshire Green Party.
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