The Molesey News

We find that Steve Bax is distributing a paper under the heading of “The Molesey News” and a number of people may be assuming that this is a renewal of the genuine and independent newspaper which was previously sold in Molesey. The current publication is a Conservative party publication, which is stated in small print on the paper.

It appears to us that a major purpose of this “Molesey News”, as written by Mr. Bax, is to derogate councillors and members of The Molesey Residents Association as much as possible. To do this, Mr. Bax uses inaccurate and misleading statements and at the same time, presents himself as solving problems in Molesey. Problems, over which, he has doubtful or very little influence in resolving.

We are particularly concerned with his latest statement on the Hampton Court Station site sags, eg. ….”it’s hard to avoid feeling that the Jolly Boatman saga has been blighted by poor handling from start to finish”. He goes on to try and implicate the M.R.A. councillors by stating…. “Molesey needs better governance in such matters”. Of course the truth is that the Conservative Councillors at Elmbridge Council who put this High Court Station Planning through, voting as a block bar one.  Molesey councillors have found this application to be flawed from its initiation and have always opposed it.

In the same article, it is claimed that M.R.A. councillors could have stopped approval of all the 56 reserved conditions, by voting against each one. The M.R.A. councillors did in fact ensure many of the conditions were brought before the Planning Committee for proper scrutiny.  However “Planning” should not be a political matter, and if were to be made so, it would come at severe cost to the council, and result in higher Council Tax.

The Molesey Councillors, supported by the Conservatives councillors on the Planning Committee, did consider that one of the conditions put up for approval, would stand non-approval and this gave a proper planning opportunity to finally cause the whole planning application to run out of time.  However, an independent planning inspector ruled the application as OK and has allowed the applicant, Gadedale, to seek costs against the council on what is now judged to be an “improper refusal”

Mr. Bax, through the medium of the Molesey News, promotes the idea that Molesey Councillors should have “kicked out all the 56 applications for approval of conditions, whilst simultaneously criticising the outcome of the one condition on which Molesey Councillors attempted to use the best planning reasons available to try and refuse approval. 

Mr. Bax goes on to praise the Hampton Court Rescue Campaign people in isolation, when the M.R.A has worked closely with the H.C.R.C. members and provided funding to help the cause. A cause the M.R.A. and H.C.R.C are jointly concerned with and active on.

It appears to the M.R.A that the sole aim, as stated above, of Mr. Bax, through his mouth piece “The Molesey New”, is to use this and other issues impacting our community to derogate the very effective work of the Molesey Residents Association. The way articles are constructed and the facts presented, infers to the M.R.A. that Mr. Bax is deliberately twisting the truth about these various issues. It has been established over several elections that Mr. Bax wishes to be elected and represent the people of Molesey within the Elmbridge council. All residents should consider carefully if they would wish to have such a person as a councillor. Furthermore, some of our members have reported writing to Mr. Bax, about the way he appears to mis-represent matters in his paper, and they have not received any reply.

Published on Friday, September 13th, 2013
in General Interest