... you;ve guessed it, its another public promise thats privately going nowhere!

So last Thursday we did our usual trip to the full council meeting, so lets break this down

Question 1: With invites for us to attend a meeting with Natural England regarding hacking in Risden Woods including amongst others:

• Cllr Swords’ email dated 17th July.
• Cllr Purse’s response to public question on July 13th Cabinet meeting (page 18 of minutes)
• Cllr Purse’s response to my subsequent question at Cabinet meeting on 7th September to which it was affirmed.

Can you please explain why we have now received an email stating we are 
not invited, the reason for the retraction of the invite and why we had to chase 
the meeting date only to be told we were no longer invited?

Council response: Mr Wilson is absolutely correct he had been promised a meeting and I accept the recent response he received did not reflect this. So to completely clarify, the council did meet with Natural England this week and are now arranging the three-way meeting between the council, Natural England and the campaigning group, which Mr Wilson and others will be invited to as 
promised. This will now be set up without delay. 

Broken promise one: Despite the promises to keep us updated, the council have gone back on their word and had the meeting without informing 

Broken promise two: The response states that this meeting will be set up 'without delay' and guess what. Radio silence again. No contact to ask when we might be available, no acknowledgement that this is happening, no agenda

So, our follow on question was "Can we see the minutes from the meeting that took place" and here it is

Broken promise three: So far, no meeting minutes, nit even a confirmation that there were any minutes taken

Question 2: Does the council feel that it has adhered to the core principles defined in the code of corporate governance in its handling of the Harlow Woods horse access issue? Namely: 

• Behaving with integrity
• Ensuring openness and comprehensive stakeholder engagement
• Implementing good practices in transparency, reporting and audit to 
  deliver effective accountability.

I ask because we have had a number of broken promises regarding meetings, several unfounded claims have been made internally (as highlighted in our recent DSAR) and that agreements made at cabinet and full council have been reneged upon?

Response 2: As with my answer to the previous question, the three-way meeting is now being arranged to bring absolutely clarity to the matter and I do recognise that the council has had shortcomings in the way it has dealt with this matter. However, on the issue at hand, horse riding has not been permitted in the woodlands since at least 2006 and the site now forms the only substantial
area of designated SSSI in the Council’s area and the Council has acted 
accordingly given the continued breach of the fact horse riding is not 
permitted in these woodlands. 

So... not really answering the question at hand, the closest point being "hat the council has had shortcomings in the way it has dealt with this matter."

Our follow up question was "Given the information contained within our DSAR a few examples of which I have here tonight do you think it's fair to say we have been treated badly from all levels within the council"

The response to which was "I'll have to take advice before answering that" - Well that advice must be taking some time because unsurprisingly, we still have heard nothing.

A fellow campaigner then asked a question to determine what the council would deem to be 'affordable' in relation to any changes that would allow hacking to take place. Interestingly the council did not give any guidance on that, instead opting with this rather odd statement

"The Council has previously raised an alternative option for the horse riding 
community which would involve the redesignation of the Public Right Of Way 
running alongside the woodlands to a bridleway which would at least then 
provide approved access and connectivity to the existing Byway in the Epping 
Forest District. The Council offered to support the group in this, but to date, 
that option has not been progressed"

So here and now I would ask that decision makers on this petition what support did you give us? The only time this has been mentioned was in your letter where you said you could not accommodate hacking and you suggested that we contact EFDC to change the PROW (which we have done, its not viable) - If that's your definition of 'support' then we have very different understanding of the word. Would love to see some evidence of how you offered to support us... I guess that will be as forthcoming as every other item you've promised!