A long time in the Community Reps

It is only four months since CRP leader, Steven Henderson, split his party by making a highly inappropriate, political speech at Mayor making. Two of his own councillors, Jackie Wares and Pat Burke, publicly criticised him and the turmoil began.

 

Labour councillors have watched in amazement as, instead of working for the benefit of our town, those leading the CRP have put their energy into launching bitter attacks on their own colleagues. Something had to give and when it did it all happened very quickly.

 

Firstly, Steven Henderson announced that he wasn’t, and never had been, the leader of Harwich Town Council. This was news to everyone else on the council but his words came as no surprise. It would appear that he was happy to be leader when a photo was being taken but didn’t want to know when a difficult decision had to be taken.

 

We then heard that three CRP councillors, Mick Gardiner, Steph Tyrer and Jackie Wares had left the party because they were fed up with the fact that the CRP were more interested in stopping other parties from doing things for Harwich than they were doing things themselves. This now offers an explanation as to why CRP councillors tried to stop Labour’s Nine Items earlier this year.

 

Lastly, the CRP Deputy Mayor, John Brown, launched a scathing public attack on his CRP colleague, David Rutson, for going on holiday while being mayor. This, to our knowledge, is the first time that a deputy mayor has ever publicly attacked the mayor and does nothing to help the council or the town.

 

In the meantime, as a result of working with everyone prepared to focus on helping our town, Lawrie Payne was able to show Harwich Town Council’s latest meeting the plans for a £100,000 project for a new play area and multi use games area on the Mace Park behind Ray Avenue.

 

It’s yet another example of Labour giving 100% for Harwich while the CRP fight amongst themselves.