A THURROCK Conservative councillor has distanced himself from criticism of his group – despite agreeing with it!

In somewhat bizarre circumstances Stanford-le-Hope councillor Shane Ralph says a statement by the chairman of a working party he was a part of should not have been published, even though he agrees with its sentiment and is opposed to major plans set to be endorsed by his party.

Yesterday (Monday, 7 October) Thurrock Nub News reported on a statement issued by the chair of the Cross Party Working Group on recycling and waste strategy slamming plans to change bin collections in the borough and charge residents to have their garden waste disposed of.

Chairman of the working group, Labour's Cllr Mike Fletcher, said its members felt they were being misrepresented in a report to the council's cabinet next week, which says they support and endorse all the changes.

He quoted Cllr Ralph as one of those against the plans.

But today Cllr Ralph says that while he agrees with the working party's decision – and opposes the changes – the views of the group should not have been made public in a press release. And he says the council's Labour group is using the issue to make political mischief.

Cllr Ralph told Nub News he agreed with the working group's decisions but said: "I would say I am shocked that the Labour chair of the waste task force has released this statement and it has been given the impression that it is endorsed by me.

"The way Thurrock Labour have acted since their on/off leader is back in charge I am beginning to expect nothing short of political headline grabbing on every occasion. I was not aware that the Labour Chair of this group was releasing this statement to the press I assumed he was doing the honourable thing and preparing to present it to Cabinet next week.

"The cross party group has done a massive amount of work on looking how the waste service should transform, it was done without politics and following residents feedback. The recommendations are to go to cabinet, they as the decision makers will make the decisions and I know they will take on board what we have said.

"However, I will implore them to ignore this last minute politicalisation of the work we did. We did not ask for another consultation and we had assurances that any job losses that may happen depending on the model cabinet agree will be from held open post, temporary staff and natural turn over in the service.

"We all looked long and hard at the options to help drive up recycling and for residents to still get a service that collects every week. To see councillors throwing their toys out of the pram because they think they can't get their way or to deliberately change their mind for political gain is not the behaviour I would expect of true civic leaders."