I agree with Tricky. I think the petition can be easily dismissed. It was started in August 2011 and by the end of October 2011 there were claims on the website that it had received 7500 signatures. That was at a time when Mr Hoyle claimed that Marple in Action represented the views of some 19,000 Marple residents and MIA was, as Tricky suggests, fat on a diet of ”development the size of seven football pitches”, “swimming pool to be demolished to make way for a roundabout “ etc, etc. etc.
By the time the petition was presented, in December 2012, a great deal of information was available and scaremongering had of necessity been replaced by the consideration of facts. During that intervening fourteen month period the petition had apparently gained just 770 signatures. In addition MIA have always ignored suggestions that they should reveal just how many of the signatories were Marple residents. Somewhat less than 19,000 obviously.
No one has ever said that MIA had no support, there is obviously a hardcore. How many would you say were at the Marple Area Committee meeting, 200?
I believe that the numbers turning out for protest marches give some indication of the rate of evaporation of support among the general public. At the first such march in August 2011 the turnout was estimated to exceed 1000. It was on a Saturday and the weather was good. The campaign was well and truly in la la land at the time but the fact that it was during the school holidays could have reduced the turnout.
There was another protest march on 7th July 2012, at the time of the first ASDA/CAMSFC public consultation. By then the campaign had found itself in the real world and MIA estimated the turnout at “around 200”. Again it was on a Saturday with fine weather, there was a similar campaign to raise support, and this time turnout would not have been affected by school holiday absentees.
Finally there was the march on 29th September 2012 at the time of the second public consultation. Again neither the weather nor school holidays were an issue and similar requests for support were made. To be honest I was staggered by tiny turnout of about 100 supporters. Subsequently MIA said virtually nothing about this march and published no estimate of the numbers, which is hardly surprising. I can add to that the number of comments I heard at the July 2012 consultation to the effect that it all seemed quite reasonable and “I wouldn’t have signed the petition if I had known it was going to be like this”.
I think it reasonable to describe a fall of 90% in public support as a dramatic decrease. It was always likely that support would fall when the facts were known and it became clear that the proposals were for a facility commensurate with the needs of Marple, not the nightmare scenario that MIA had endeavoured to portray, but nothing on this scale
Don’t spend a lot of time trying to analyse the terms of any contract between Kirkland and SMBC. There isn’t one and there never has been. It seems to be some sort of arrangement. This, of course gives rise to a host of questions which our councillors seem reluctant to answer.
Is this the way SMBC normally do business?
If not why was this one different?
Was it for any reason expected to be a temporary arrangement?
Presumably if Kirkland have no contractual obligations then, presumably, SMBC don’t either?
In which case why does the report prepared for Marple Area Committee recommend that SMBC throw some of the Council Tax payer’s cash at Kirkland?
To name a few.
