Harwich Councillors Betray Harwich
On Tuesday, March 24th a motion was voted on at TDC to enable a £1.4 million refurbishment of Dovercourt’s swimming pool and sports hall. Harwich’s Labour councillors had been seeking these much needed improvements and, having secured the backing of fellow administration councillors from right across the district, expected to see the motion passed with the support of every councillor elected to represent our town. Lawrie Payne seconded the motion and used his speech to explain how much of a difference this would make to leisure facilities in Harwich and Dovercourt.
The Conservatives made it clear that they would oppose the motion which meant that its success or failure depended on the votes of the three Community Reps. All three voted with the Tories to prevent the refurbishment being approved. We now have a situation where the Mayor of Harwich, David Rutson, the Deputy Mayor of Harwich, John Brown, Steven Henderson and Conservative Ricky Calender, are voting against everything that Labour is doing to improve facilities in our town.
The CRP and Tories voted against the 10p rate in the Milton Road car park, new seafront toilets, the re-planting of the cliff slopes etc and now they have voted against doing up our swimming pool. Unfortunately, we can do nothing to stop this. It appears that there is an agreement between the Tories and the CRP and that the CRP is putting the wishes of the Tories before the best interests of our town. Our local Labour councillors will continue giving 100% for Harwich. It is time the others started to do the same.