One week on from attending council cabinet and yet another promise broken.

On 13th July Cllr Swords stated in his email to us that "Both the council and yourselves have received advice from Natural England on the matter which would appear to be contradictory. Therefore we would like to have all three parties in the room to clarify the advice."

On 31st July, Simon Freeman (Deputy CEO for Harlow Council) wrote to us and said that Natural England were not available until 14th August, confirming that he would "get back to you once the NE officer is back from leave and a date has been agreed for a meeting to take place"

On 23rd August Simon Freeman advised that "We have been informed by Natural England that a meeting date in August will not be possible and the earliest we would be able to convene a meeting is mid to late September. We will ensure that you are kept informed of potential dates"

On 7th September Councillor Purse, in response to our question at cabinet, stated "The Council has arranged a meeting between Council Officers and Natural England staff for later in September" - when questioned by us as to whether the meeting had been booked and whether we would be invited she confirmed that no date had been finalised and that we we would be invited. (We'll let that little fib about the meeting having been booked slip shall we)

On 15th September we wrote to Simon Freeman stating "Is there any progress on a meeting Date between Harlow Council, Natural England, and ourselves? This was first promised by Cllr Swords on 13th July and more recently by Mr Freeman on 31st July and finally Cllr Purse at cabinet on 7th September.... I should also remind you that in the email of 13th July it was agreed that we would also be given the opportunity to discuss how our complaints and requests have been managed by council officers. Several disclosures from our DSAR have highlighted the need to revisit this area so we would ask that this meeting is arranged as soon as practicably possible given that Natural England would not be required to attend."

Fast forward one week and this is what we receive from Simon Freeman today

"The meeting will be between the council and Natural England in the first instance... The council will update you on progress once these discussions have taken place"

also conveniently ignoring the fact that we had been offered the opportunity by Cllr Swords to discuss the handling of our request and totally reneging on their promise at cabinet for us to be present at the meeting.

... and the council wonder why we do not trust them to approach this meeting with fairness, impartiality and integrity as confirmed by our DSAR.