flamboyant Posted November 22, 2013 Report Share Posted November 22, 2013 I was thinking that Dip, I thought what's the great Dip worried about its just a reflection of his great personality lol On a more serious note think I'm about to get banned from HT just thrown a mega In my defence it was the void! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamboyant Posted November 22, 2013 Report Share Posted November 22, 2013 Scrap that last comment Dippy I've been deleted lol no matter will try my luck here instead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dippyhippy Posted November 22, 2013 Report Share Posted November 22, 2013 Nooooo Flam! You haven't! T'is you who is confused this time my friend!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Kenyon Posted November 23, 2013 Report Share Posted November 23, 2013 I have watched this thread with interest and have now decided to comment : It does not matter where people think individuals or groups come from but where they are going "it's our county" I = independent O= organised C= committed I don't care who or what has gone on in the past the group I am with are trying to reinstall faith with the voters,work hard in the community's we live in and smash a large dose of common sense when the majority think and know it has gone astray. There are good and bad in all the political groups we need to sort the wheat from the chaff and put together a team fit to organise and run our county there are even tougher choices to be made in the future working together we can make sure we do the right ones. There have been a lot of lies written about my group we have kept a dignified silence and the voters spoke for us now it the time for the independents to realise WE OUR NOT the problem we need to put differences apart and work closely together to sort "our county out" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dippyhippy Posted November 23, 2013 Report Share Posted November 23, 2013 Great post Jim- succinct, and to the point! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Hubbard Posted November 24, 2013 Report Share Posted November 24, 2013 Hello to all you good people! I have found reading this thread very interesting with a bit of hindsight re: Pontrilas. I need to correct a few factual inaccuracies and try and explain why IOC is the way that it is. Firstly and I need to be very clear about this, the It's Our City campaign was just that - a completely separate organisation set up to highlight the problems with the proposals around the ESG retail quarter. Now that it is being built, we are seeing a complete dearth of any financial investment in the city centre. Many of the things we predicted are now coming to pass. No-one will take a lease in the historic core of our city centre now. Take the burnt out buildings for example. The owners are a property company based in London. They have received a very good insurance payout for the damage done to their building, but it no longer makes any financial sense for them to re-invest this capital in a site that they cannot get a tenant for. WHY? because the ESG site still has vacancies and the way that it will change the footfall in town makes the prospect of taking a lease in High Town far far too risky. Most of the other national operators in High Town have been in discussions with the developers of the ESG with a view to trying to do a deal to leave High Town and move over the road. The developers have got agreement from the council that they have up to 40 years to build a second phase of this development, which my guess will happen when the remaining big names that are still trading in our historic city centre give up and want to move over. Whilst the campaign brought many like minded people together and may have provided the impetus to look at more of a political answer, when It's Our County was born it was a completely new organisation with new members and a completely different structure to the campaign. So Cllr V-P is not correct when she says we just changed our name - it just is not that simple. So why set up a political party in the first place? In short, you do not have a choice. If you want to develop an identity with a set of cohesive policies that are based in Herefordshire for the good of the county, you can ONLY do this within the system by forming a political party or you are classed as an independent. When I first discussed the idea, the 3 founding councillors of IOC were ALL Independent councillors arguing from the inside that the independent group should develop policies that we could all agree on so we could fight a proper campaign on the doorstep and not just rely on individual candidates being known. To be effective against national political parties with their election machines on the ground we believe you HAVE to be organised. You don't have to play the game by their rules - and we really try not to, but if you are not organised they will walk all over you, time and time again. So there you have it - the birth of IOC back in 2010. Up until this recent by-election, we have made regular attempts to work with the independent group. We supported them in the Ross by-election, when there was a completely open goal for their candidate to win. We did not put up a candidate and we were out canvassing for their candidate on the doorstep and did far more hours tramping round Ross than the independents did themselves. What did we get for it? The blame when he did not win. Cllr V-P went of record in the local press to say it was our fault. That hurts when you have put yourselves out to support another group. For Pontrilas we asked them to consider a joint selection panel - picking the best candidate between the two we had between the two groups, but they refused to engage, barely replying to our requests for more co-operation between the groups. So Jon Norris gave us the confidence to go for it - and I am very glad we did. The people on the doorstep in Pontrilas really got what we are trying to do - they understood. The rest is history. I hope this goes some way to explain a little further about things from our perspective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dippyhippy Posted November 24, 2013 Report Share Posted November 24, 2013 Really, really appreciate this post Mark. Its important people have the full facts, and understanding the history of IOC is a major part of that. Onwards and upwards....!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Hubbard Posted November 24, 2013 Report Share Posted November 24, 2013 It is my pleasure dippy. Glad you found it helpful. As you say.... Onwards & upwards! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dippyhippy Posted November 25, 2013 Report Share Posted November 25, 2013 It is my pleasure dippy. Glad you found it helpful. As you say.... Onwards & upwards! I say many things Mark, not many of them are particularly sensible!! Hey ho! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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