Rhostyllen.com

 

The ‘Not on Erddig’ campaign began in February 2007. It began after an article in the local paper detailing plans by the National Trust to build 223 houses on Erddig ground opposite the village of Rhostyllen in North East Wales.

A local resident of Wrecsam contacted the campaign group Cymuned to ask for their support in opposing the National Trust plans. Cymuned agreed to support the campaign and to help distribute information leaflets and posters around the village of Rhostyllen.

The local campaign organiser got in touch with Mr Mark Pritchard (local councillor for Rhostyllen) to ask him about his views as regards the development. He informed her that many residents were angry about the proposals and that he himself had opposed the development from the start. He thought the campaign was a great idea and that getting information out to the local community would be of great benefit. When asked about the possibility of arranging a public meeting about the development, he advised the organiser to go to the Parish Hall and inform the Clerk that he had sent her to arrange a date.

The response to the leaflets and posters was staggering. It quickly emerged that many in the village were not even aware of the plans or were under the impression that the development already had full planning permission. Villagers responded by phoning the Cymuned head office or filling in the online petition on the Cymuned web page to state their opposition.

Following the response of local people, objection forms were delivered to households in the village. Over 100 were sent in through the local campaign organiser alone. The final figure has yet to be announced by the local council.

The obvious next step was to organise a public meeting in the village to allow local people to have their say about the development. This was the interesting bit.

As suggested by Mr Mark Pritchard, the campaign organiser went to the Parish Hall in Rhostyllen to arrange a date. Following several weeks of waiting for a response, she was told that the council had decided not to allow the meeting as it was organised by a political group. It had been explained to them on several occasions that Cymuned were a communities pressure group and the only purpose of the meeting was to allow local residents to have their say about the development.

Following the refusal of the community council, Cymuned then approached the Bersham Sports and Social club. The room was booked and paid for and staff requested that posters be dropped off to publicise it. Several days later, a phone call was received from the manager of the club to state that he would be canceling the meeting. In his words “there are members of Rhostyllen community council who are also on our board, therefore, we don’t want to touch it”. We explained that because they were canceling after the hall had been paid for that they were breaking a contract. The manager still refused the booking and the press was contacted with the details. The manager claimed he had been misled and that he had been told the booking was for a party. We are still in possession of the receipt which states public meeting. Also noted in the press was the fact that the community council had allowed the National trust to have several ‘displays’ at the hall.

In the press article, the local councillor Mark Pritchard agreed that the National Trust had used the Hall for displays; he said the community council would welcome Cymuned with open arms if they also wished to stage a display at the Hall. Cymuned promptly prepared a display to use and submitted the request through the community council.

Several weeks later the community council refused the use of the hall again. Their reason, we do not want the hall used for political purposes.

After these attempts, it was decided to hold the public meeting in Ruabon. A local business man from the area kindly offered the use of his premises. Although it was not ideal asking resident to travel for a meeting, the meeting was well attended and residents made clear their views. They did not want this development and they also wanted to do something practical to stop it.

A meeting was arranged for the following week and regional AM Janet Ryder attended to show her support. Many residents from Rhostyllen were also in attendance and made the decision to spearhead the campaign. They also decided on a name for their group, the Rhostyllen Residents Committee (RRC).

The RRC decided that it was essential that a public meeting take place in the village itself. As residents, they could see no reason why the community council was refusing to let them have their say. They attended a local council meeting and put that question to the community council. The council said ‘if this meeting is being arranged by the RRC then we are happy for you to use the hall’, they also offered the RRC the use of a room in the hall for their weekly meetings.

A date was eventually given to the group, Saturday 25^th July, bank holiday weekend (less than ideal). The community council also put a poster up in the hall stating that a ‘council’ meeting was to take place on the 25^th July. The council was informed that the meeting would be organised by the RRC and that it would most definitely not be a council meeting.

The RRC worked tirelessly to publicise the event. Posters were put up and leaflets were delivered to the majority of the village. Everything was finally set for the meeting. Or was it?

RRC Meeting 15:08:08

Five members of the community council walked into a private RRC campaign meeting and demanded to know various personal details from committee members. They were very rude but were politely asked to contact the secretary of the committee to arrange attendance and would then be welcome to come along. It was explained to them that the agenda had already been set for the meeting and that no one from the community council had asked if they could attend. They eventually left after making it clear that they were not happy with the outcome.

Then, they threw their toys. They held an emergency council meeting on 20^th August and decided to cancel the public meeting yet again. The reason they gave was that they were confident that ‘activists’ were running the RRC and would not allow use of the hall for political purposes. How they established that after walking into a meeting for a total of 10 minutes is difficult to fathom.

Only one member of Cymuned attends RRC meetings (she is from Wrecsam) the rest are residents of Rhostyllen or Wrecsam, they had been informed of this on several occasions.

So, the public meeting in Rhostyllen has not taken place as yet. The behaviour of the community council has been very questionable and the RRC intend to submit an official complaint to the ombudsman about their behaviour.

Next came the meeting with the National Trust. Cymuned had requested a meeting with the Trust from the beginning of the campaign. All requests had been ignored until the publicity of the campaign became too much for them to ignore. They contacted Cymuned and requested a meeting which took place on 28^th August.

The secretary for the RRC and the local Cymuned campaign organiser attended along with Aran Jones (chief executive of Cymuned). They met Gwynne Jones, the communications and marketing manager for the Trust.

The meeting was a positive one and the concerns of local people were expressed to the Trust. They acknowledged that the consultation process had not been good enough but suggested that was the responsibility of the community council in Rhostyllen. They were asked about the possibility of having a public meeting in Rhostyllen to correct some of the mistakes that had been made and informed us that they would get back to us with a decision. They also claimed to know nothing of the document that had been on display at Erddig Hall stating that all property must be for local people. They said they would also track this down and get back to us.

The very next morning, they issued a press release in which they claimed the majority of local people were in favour of the development and that objections had been based on ‘errors of fact’. This was certainly not the response we had expected from the Trust and we had been hopeful of further meetings and an effort from them for more local consultation.

The National Trust has made it clear that they are not interested in local concerns, they had an opportunity to genuinely engage with the community but they chose not to take it. It would seem that many are not interested in hearing any views that oppose this development, but it is our democratic right to be heard.

Public support for the campaign is growing and through the media the views of locals are coming across loud and clear. The planning committee will be meeting in either October or November to make a decision about this development. We hope that by this stage common sense will prevail and this development will be given much more scrutiny. There are many, many factors that need examining in more detail.

If the planning process is genuine and democracy prevails, this development will not go ahead.