Despite calling HS2 “an act of ecocide” on the grounds that building it would “bulldoze huge areas of natural woodland and cut wildlife habitats”, the Green-led Brighton and Hove City Council have nonetheless bulldozed a huge area of natural woodland and cut a wildlife habitat this week, by partially removing Europe’s longest and oldest green wall to make room for a “possible” cycle lane on the road. Built in the 1870s “to improve the seafront environment”, the wall was home to over 100 species of plant and a designated local wildlife site…
BuildingGreen, the firm responsible for maintaining the wall alongside the Council, said it was “shocked” at what happened, and that it was the result of a “miscommunication“. All this for a “possible” cycle lane. At least HS2 is actually being built…
UPDATE: Brighton & Hove City Council have issued a statement denying councillors had any knowledge of the deforestation:
We’d like to apologise to our residents for the way we went about cutting back the stretch of Green Wall at the bottom of Duke’s Mound in March.
It should not have been cut down in this way. We are very sorry about this, and an investigation is underway to find out how this happened.
As part of the Black Rock regeneration project a road safety audit was carried out. This found that the greenery limited visibility and may result in collisions between vehicles and pedestrians. The cutting back of the greenery was not raised with councillors. It was arranged by council staff as an operational requirement, stemming from the road safety audit.
Hat-tip: Jody Doherty-Cove
Labour members have been have been hitting out at people who are reporting instances of anti-Semitism in a private Facebook group. Dozens of members of Brighton Labour have been rushing to the defence of Alex Braithwaite, who was suspended earlier this month for sharing “abhorrent” posts on social media, claiming Israel is “whipping up Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis to smear Jeremy Corbyn” and that the BBC was controlled by Jews.
In one thread, Labour members call the suspension “disgusting”, offer Braithwaite “solidarity” and say “we are all with you.” One member calls for the people calling out anti-Semitism to face disciplinary action. Another demanded that all members “march about this to the Synagogue in Hove.” Marching on Synagogues? Really?
This comes just weeks after a local Labour chair launched a defence of another recently suspended candidate who tweeted “I love gang rape”. The state of Brighton and Hove Labour Party…
The chair of a local Labour branch has defended local candidate Daniel Gray who was suspended after tweeting “I love gang rape.” Matt Webb, the chair of Brighton Labour’s St Peter’s & North Laine branch claimed that “His only crime is being a Labour Party Socialist.” Webb apparently doesn’t see praising gang rape as problematic…
Schoolteacher Daniel Gray tweeted “I love gang rape” less than a month after a 14-year-old girl was raped in a local park. He also called singers Jessie J and Jess Glynne “a catsuit wearing c***” and a “cardboard ginger c***”, tweeted that his dental hygienist was a “patronising bitch” and wrote of pushing ahead of a “cow” with a pram on a train. Webb, who works for UNISON as an ‘education convener’, said ‘Gang Rape’ Gray has his “absolute support”…
Momentum have succeeded in deselecting three sitting councillors in Brighton and Hove, replacing them with Momentum candidates in time for next year’s local elections. Momentum has 2,000 local supporters in the area…
Amongst those deselected was Anne Meadows, one of Brighton’s longest serving and most senior councillors, who responded to her deselection saying: “Momentum are operating within the Labour Party but have no real loyalty to the party and as you know I have suffered intimidation and abuse so they can deselect me and control the ward and the party.” Kinder, gentler…
