Forwarded as Councillor Clarke is not on the list. -----Original Message----- From: Clarke, Councillor N <Councillor.NClarke@salford.gov.uk> To: <ENG-LAN-ECCLES-L@rootsweb.com <ENG-LAN-ECCLES-L@rootsweb.com>; ENG-MANCHESTER-L@rootsweb.com <ENG-MANCHESTER-L@rootsweb.com>; Date: 14 March, 2002 21:56 Subject: RE: Barton Wesleyan Greetings all, Don't know how many of you have met me or heard or heard of my involvement regarding the above chapel. Please read all the way down. We need some help but we also need to bring you up to speed. The council's planning committee visited the site today. The committee are made up of a cross party group of councillors and will ultimately decide on whether to accept or reject the planning application for the site. A good deal of the committee's members are with us, in that they do not want to see any disturbance of graves. It is though hard to judge exactly how many of them will vote to reject the proposal. A great deal of work has been done locally by Eric, Paul, Paul, Pat and Ronnie and a score of others. Apologies for those I haven't named and your work is greatly valued and should be highlighted by someone more knowledgeable than myself at some stage. I have no doubt that this planning application would have been passed through unnoticed without their work. I also have no doubt that their work on recovering the graveyard to a respectable condition has certainly given today's visiting party some doubts as to whether they can vote to accept the planning proposal. I would further like to add how pleased I was today to have the developer, Mr Hampson verbally attack me, describing as, "that useless lump of a councillor" and that, "clown of a councillor." He may have used other phrases and combination of those mentioned as well. This is a great testament to the work the team has done and more than goes to demonstrate that we have him riled. My only complaint is that his outburst was not heard by the visiting planning committee. I have however let advised the Director of Development Services of his behaviour, not to mention the obvious distress that this has caused me. What we need from people is knowledge: 1) If we have any building surveyors in our midst they would be most useful. We could do with an official carrying out a free survey that states the existing building is in good condition and not beyond repair. 2) Although we have made contact with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission we need to know from anyone that can tell us if there are any soldiers buried in the churchyard. 3) We need anyone that has any influence with English Heritage to put some pressure on them to respond to respond to Salford Council and ask for a 'spot notice' or anything stronger to placed on the chapel in order to halt development. 4) Please contact the magazine 'Private Eye' and in particular their section 'Nooks and Corners' regarding our plight. You can e-mail the editor at strobes@private-eye.co.uk. Do put in the subject bar that it's intended recipient is 'Nooks and Corners'. For those of you that don't know the magazine, it's a satirical publication with has a section on dodgy/questionable developments of sites which should be preserved. Their web site can be found at http://www.private-eye.co.uk/default.htm I don't think that there is anything else to say at this stage other than we are gaining some ground. The press still appear to be on our side. I've not seen this week's article but I have no reason to believe that it is unsympathetic. We've raised a lot of questions which I've insisted are answered before the application is considered again by the planning committee. This at least will delay the whole process. I will finish with a quote, although there is another if you read on, "Dead men have bequeathed a trust to us living men. Ghosts are a troublesome thing in a house or family, as we knew even before Isben taught us. There is only one way to appease a ghost. You must do the thing it asks you. The ghosts of a nation sometimes ask very big things and they must be appeased, whatever the cost" (P Pearse, 1915). Yours fraternally, Nev Clarke "It's the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you." Tony B