Stockport Council News

Email sent to John Hill, Council Legal Officer on – 16 September 2009 09:05

Dear Mr Hill

I was told not to contact any council officer. You yourself refused to accept the application in person. I kept telling the FOI officer (who was the only one I was allowed to contact) that you had written to me and that I couldn’t reply on pain of retribution from Schultz. I told Khan, I think I told the Licensing Committee. I have all the evidence for judicial review. I did contact planning officers during this time because I knew Schultz was breaking the law in enforcing that. All the time I witnessed the truly disgusting things that were being done to Mr Parnell, so I knew not to cross someone like Schulz. That the FOI officer, Schulz and Khan did not reply is maladministration on the part of this council – more evidence for judicial review.

In addition, you failed to contact the ransom strip landowners. It is an offence under the Fraud Act 2006 to cause someone a loss. You should have contacted the owners of the town houses on Mill Lane. Rectify that astonishing error.

I need the evidence that you asked other village green applicants to provide a map to the same scale as was required of me – a map costing hundreds of pounds. If you can’t provide that evidence, this is more in my arsenal for judicial review.

Yours

Mrs S J Oliver

Stockport’s Freedom of Information Campaigner

Free Mr Parnell, victim of a corrupt council.

Email sent to John Hill, Council Legal Officer – 29 September 2009 21:00

Dear Mr Hill

For the avoidance of doubt, I was told my Mr Schultz I could contact no council officer and that they had received that instruction from the Chief Executive was conveyed to me both by Mr Jim Seymour, the planning officer, and Ms Bardsley, contaminated land protection officer. This was doubly worrying because at the time I was trying to draw the Council’s attention to the fact that they had not informed the Environment Agency of the plans to build the school on the former toxic dump, which the Council had to publicly apologise for in the local press.

You yourself told me in writing that I was not to contact you as did Mr Lamb. I have evidence; I don’t think that fact can be denied.

I told you I was claiming a village green early in 2008. I was ignored. I tried to submit the village green but was told I could not hand it to any officer due to my alleged rude and offensive behaviour and had I left it at Reception as per my instructions, it might have gone missing (although I trust the Reception staff). I eventually handed it to a committee clerk at the full council meeting after the Mayor had refused to accept it. I’ll take it from you, Mrs Oliver, he said and I could see the form had been accepted by the Council in front of witnesses. You then contacted me and I informed the Freedom of Information Officer that you were contacting me but that I had been banned from contacting you. This went on for months with no response from anyone when I tried to inform them of my plight. This is, I believe, a clear case of maladministration. I was frightened to contact you, as I was fully aware what was happening to the Town Hall Protester and feared with good reason that to disobey Mr. Schulz might lead to incarceration in a police cell or a prison.

Mr Parnell is now held in a particularly rough Manchester prison probably till January. He has told me he will go on hunger strike if he is sent to prison and I heard that his solicitor was begging him to eat on Monday when he appeared in court. All he has allegedly done is sneeze, but this was not on the CCTV footage of the incident and this was not allowed to be shown in court.

So, if Mr. Parnell dies in prison, as is perfectly possible as he is in ill health anyway, I will be totally able to justify my concerns in not contacting you due to the draconian and Kafkaesque behaviour of this corrupt council. You will see from the forms I am to submit obtained in just over 2 weeks that I have massive local support and we have agreed to form ourselves into a limited company and take this issue to judicial review if necessary. I would love the facts about Schulz and Khan and their behaviour towards Mr. Parnell to come out at judicial review. It may well be, and I certainly hope so, that some people face custodial sentences as a result of what has gone on with Mr. Parnell. Certainly I shall be pushing for an inquiry if he dies. The Executive Councillors, I assume, have some sort of legal duty to monitor what is being done by senior council officers. It is my fervent hope that they will be banned from holding office or even serve a sentence themselves for this disgusting miscarriage of justice. I have gone to Jack Straw and Mr Parnell’s case is currently under investigation.

So, we need to agree the date of my village green application.

Yours

Mrs S J Oliver

Stockport’s Freedom of Information Campaigner

Free Mr Parnell, victim of a corrupt council.

I sent this email to John Hill, the Council’s Legal Officer – 9 September 2009 21:00

Dear Mr Hill

I attach further evidence village green evidence to add to the masses I have already provided to you from local people. I know this is one day past your deadline, but I had to write to Buxton for it, there is a post strike and I received the reply today. It is from children now grown up, who state the importance of having that safe land for them as they were growing up. No doubt you have lots of green space where you live.

I have not heard anything from you about the strange incident of the £340 map. You demanded of me a map to the most astonishing scale that it caused consternation in the specialist map shop, as I recall but I may be wrong, of the policital ward of North Reddish, as if the Council had no idea where that was and needed me to provide a £340 map (for one sheet!!!). I was furious with you on that day and went straight to the Express to show Mr. Devine all the relevant documents.

You have a legal duty to be impartial in dealing with this village green claim. Unless you have asked every other village green applicant in Stockport to provide a map to the same scale, I want you to have no further dealings with this application and I don’t want Mr Price Lewis to either. I think there would be grounds to take this matter to judicial review and also with regards to your refusing to accept the application from me. In addition, the CPO was submitted when there was a legal challenge to the land, which you should not have done, and you failed to inform the owners of the ransom strip of the threat to their land, so there would possibly be judicial review of the CPO process too. As I understand it from Goddard, the Council is so broke it can’t even print council documents, so two lots of judicial review proceedings would be a massive waste of council taxpayers’ money.

Please respond to the points about the map and the ransom strip CPO land.

I shall cc this to the Reddish local reporter, to show her how local people are being cheated by this Council.

Yours

Mrs S J Oliver

This email was sent to John Hill, Stockport Council’s legal officer – 12 October 2009 08:00

Dear Mr Hill

I have documentary evidence to show that the Council knew it needed to CPO the proposed turning circle almost a year before it submitted the CPO. Why was this land not included in the CPO? Is it because it would take the area to be CPOd over the 250 sq metre mark?

Councillors and council officers have a legal duty not to act illegally or recklessly. If the land for the turning circle needs to be CPOd, then children attending the school will be left in a dangerous situation for many years whilst the CPO is fought through the courts. My feeling is that your insurers won’t pay up for reckless or illegal behaviour, leaving senior council officers and executive councillors themselves financilly liable for the deaths of any children due to the very dangerous traffic conditions being created at this proposed school.

So, I suggest you all think very carefully before proceeding with this development and I should please like an answer to the questions above. I have ccd this to Mr Phillips at the DCSF for his information.

Yours

Mrs Oliver

Within weeks of the school opening the police had complained to the Council regarding the dangerous traffic situation around Vale View School.

I sent this to the Council’s Legal Officer, John Hill 13 October 2009 08:16

Dear Mr Hill

The CPO notices regarding the Harcourt Street CPO could only be read by an 8ft giant with 20/20 vision.

Sort it out please, and re-start the clock from the date you sort it out. There is no point in putting a notice deliberately high and deliberately in tiny print so no-one can read it.

Yours

Mrs S J Oliver

Working towards a less corrupt council

I claimed a village green on two occasions on the Harcourt Street land to prevent it being built on. Some, just some, of the dodgy dealing by the LibDem Council is documented in my speech to councillors below.

I wasn’t going to bother to turn up tonight, because the decision has already been made, trees on the site were cut down weeks ago. We have dated photographic evidence. The Council knew the councillors of the ruling party would vote presumably as per instructions, even before the documents were sent out to them and before they heard the evidence.

I would like members of the committee to be aware that there are strict rules regarding village green applications. If illegal action has been taken by the Council and the village green is granted at a later date, then any development built on the site would have to be demolished. Given the dangers this location subjects 550 children to even after the contamination remediation, which the Council tried so very hard not to carry out at all, I shall do my utmost to have any building demolished. I have taken the precaution of keeping the Council’s insurers updated regarding all the illegalities, my attempts to draw them to the Council’s attention and the Council’s subsequent non-response. The insurers would not have to pay for the demolition of the school and reinstatement of the village green land, as they don’t have any liability where fraud or reckless action by councillors or council officers is concerned. I presume the council taxpayer won’t be able to find another £12 million plus to deal with this, so my assumption is that councillors and council officers would themselves potentially face financial liability in regards to this matter, particularly in the light of the fraudulent action which has been taken. I shall be sending the insurers details of the comments I have made at this meeting, so they have documentary evidence that these issues were raised with this committee.

The decision to refuse the village green was made before the application was even accepted. Mr. Hill was instructed not to receive it from me as I presented such an apparent danger to him. However, the Council has since admitted in writing, when I threatened to sue them that I am neither rude, nor offensive nor vexatious. How odd, then, that no council officer, nor the Mayor – Pam King – would accept this application. It is related, I am sure, to the fact that a compulsory purchase order can’t be made if there is an outstanding legal challenge to the land. I was told to deal with the Freedom of Information officer, who simply ignored everything – I have the documentary evidence.

Mr. Hill has a legal duty to act impartially with regards to the village green. He hasn’t. He demanded of me one sheet of a map which would cost £388. I have the documentary evidence. I doubt he demanded it of other village green applicants. He acted outside the law with regards to the compulsory purchase of the land at Harcourt Street and Goddard, Weldon and Derbyshire acted to prevent details of this illegal act getting in the public domain, and they are still preventing this.

The village green inspector, who does a lot of work for the Council and presumably wants to keep them happy, last time accepted my definition of the neighbourhood and locality (they were given me pro bono by a village green expert at Pannones). This time, for land in the same place and involving evidence, in the main, by the same people, he wouldn’t accept these definitions. Why not?

I suggest that opposition councillors, who have behaved impeccably in this whole school on a toxic dump issue and no blame is attached to them apart from Peter Scott, don’t vote as the Council wishes on the village green. The LibDems will do exactly as they are told, so the school will go ahead even without your votes, but what it means is all the blame and presumably liability lies with the LibDem councillors.

Sheila Oliver

14/04/10