PRESS RELEASE 17th March 2008

A PLEA FOR MORE CONSULTATION

After the fiasco of last Friday (14th March), when the developers cancelled the proposed consultation event at Marshland St James, we at FLAT (together with hundreds of angry villagers) would like to be informed of the date and venue of the rescheduled event.  Ian Robinson, one of the consultants representing the consortium, also said that they had not been able to hold a consultation event at Tilney because of the hall being fully booked last week.  Perhaps this would be an opportunity for the developers to make a little bit more effort to ensure that people of Tilney are included by holding an event for them in the same week as the rescheduled Marshland event?  We also hope that the new consultation events will include representatives from the consortium, developers, turbine manufacturers, etc., as was the case with the Outwell and Emneth events.  To hold an event where only two consultants are present would be an insult to the people of Tilney and Marshland, and we sincerely hope that they will not try and fob us off with this option. 

We would like to be given details of the revised schedule for the submision of a formal planning application.  The developers have publicly stated that the final proposal would take into account the views of local people.  As no consultation has yet occurred at Tilney and Marshland, this is obviously not yet possible.  We would therefore assume that their initial 6-8 weeks timescale for planning to be submitted has now been extended!!

During the whole of this week (w/b 17th March), the exhibition will be on display in the Foyer of Herbert’s factory along Middle Drove.  We find this rather amusing after being informed of an incident at the Outwell event where Rod Herbert, the leading member of the consortium was actually forced to apologise after he was heard to call someone a “T**T” just because they did not agree with his views.  This seems to go against Ian Robinson’s accusation that it was members of FLAT who were intimidating and verbally abusing members of the public.  As a result of Rod Herbert’s actions, some people may feel too intimidated to go to such an event at his factory.  If this is the case you may want to contact FLAT and we can put you in touch with other people who may wish to visit at the same time to offer some protection from the consortium.

FLAT will be holding its own consultation event at 7PM in the Marshland St James Jubilee Hall on Tuesday the 25th of March.  Perhaps the developers might like to supply FLAT with a few hundred of their consultation forms to hand out at our meeting.  We would also like to take this opportunity to publicly invite the consultants, members of the consortium and the developers to our meeting to enable them to assess the level of local feeling in relation to this project.

For further details please visit our website on www.flat-group.co.uk and register your e-mail to enable you to receive regular updates.

We look forward to seeing you at the Jubilee Hall on the 25th of March.

The FLAT Committee