An open letter to the Glossop Chronicle - not a 'hacker' but certainly 'hacked off'

Last week's Glossop Chronic showed how desperate the Longdendale Siege Committee are to keep themselves in the paper. Last week's article about the 'hacker' that somehow broke into Robert Haycock's email to send a message to his mate David Jones was reprised again!

It's often said that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes true, and that's what Siege and the Chronic are up to here. So we've decided to write to them both, and we'll display our email below:

Hello Bob & David

Well, it's very interesting to see how you are spinning the story of the 'hacker' who broke into Longdendale Siege's email address. Trying to stretch this story across 2 whole issues of the newspaper seems pretty desperate to us.

By us, I mean our blog - known either as 'No Mottram Bypass' or 'Stop the A57/A628 Bypass' - we've been writing on the bypass for over 12 months now and you've done your best to ignore us. Even when we provide you with material for stories, as we often do, we get no credit.

But there's no hard feelings. By the way, as you know, it was us that pulled the April Fool hoax. But before we look at your accusations about hacking, we must first remark that if Mr Haycock is so concerned about his email address being used by others, then why is it still displayed on the Longdendale Siege website as the contact address? Furthermore, the Bob contacted us with the exact same email address you say we 'hacked' and not the new one you mention in the article.

As for the 'hacking' - well, we wish we had such abilities. In truth we created an email address - bobhaycock@gmail.com - and then placed Bob's real email address (robert@haycock1.fsnet.co.uk) in the 'account name' section of the settings. All this meant was that instead of displaying a 'name', the email address was displayed. Merely a confidence trick.

You see David, we know you are trying to wind your readership up by taking more potshots at those opposed to the bypass. But we don't care - I'll wager more people from Glossop and Longdendale search Google daily than read the Chronicle each week. And if they search for information about the bypass, they have an excellent chance of landing on our website and reading all about the things that you ensure don't reach your readership.

We know there isn't a cat in hell's chance of you printing this email. But it exists on our site, and anyone searching for Glossop Chronicle, Robert Haycock, Longdendale Siege and 'Hacker' will land here and read it.

Isn't all this such fun?! Until next time...

PS - David - how about a weekly column in the Chron? We'd charge much less than Anthony McKeown does to get his face in the Advertiser, as long as we can wear our balaclava for the photoshoot, it's OK by us...

John Hall on TMBC's 'smoking gun'

February 28th 2008 in the Glossop/Tameside Advertiser saw Councillor Jonathan Reynolds belting out the rhetoric again regarding the Mottram Bypass. Well, it's time the confirmed and accurate truth was given out regarding the serious deception that has been produced concerning the Longdendale Valley which MPs, Councillors etc have been aware of and have decided to keep hidden from the electorate of Tameside and Longendale. So here it is.

The Bypass planned for the Longdendale Valley form part of a transpennine route linking the Humberside ports and their facilities plus all the Yorkshire Regions to the Western ports. It will provide road links to airports linking Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic with Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield & Yorkshire and from Eastern ports to further afield: Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, the Balkans and other European Countries.

What is needed by the Government & TMBC is a Bypass to create an 'M62 mark 2' linking all these locations which include the M67/M60/M6/M5/M56 on what is called in Tameside Council's Documents the "West-East Eurocorridor" from Northern and Southern Ireland across the Irish Sea to the "Transpennine Corridor of Northen England" named NETA (North European Trade Axis) in Government and TMBC circles. TMBC are the actual NETA Secretariat for all interested parties in Europe such as business organisations and Regional Authorities. At the present time there are more than 50 partners from Germany, Holland, Ireland, Poland etc, and having met in Amsterdam, the scheme has been named the "North European Trade Axis" backed by Government money and TMBC as administrators.

So knowing the M62 is at saturation level and wanting more heavy traffic with links between ports, airports etc, the Longdendale Valley is the chosen local route to facilitate this multinational road route, hence the massive developments along the expected route for storage facilities (such as Rossington Park), truck stops, Motels plus service areas, and a host of other developments which will totally destroy thousands of acres of open rural spaces with beautiful views. So at last the truth is out, the politicians have deviously duped you, and have been deliberately deceptive, disguising the real objective as a Bypass to assist the 3 Villages. What they did was drip-feed so called concerned rhetoric to build up a head of steam up in the Longdendale Valley for a Bypass, because to simply state they wanted the Northern Way Route through the Longdendale Valley would have seen serious revolts against the scheme.

Because of these substantiated facts, which anyone can now source if willing, I have informed the Public Inquiry Inspector that he has been drawn into a scam: the PI was supposed to be totally related to the electorate of Longdendale and their concerns, whereas the absolute truth is that the PI is being held under deliberate and knowingly false pretences and the Bypass objectives have been kept hidden by TMBC Councillors and those within the administration, plus The Highways Agency, UK Government, and developers and speculators.

John Hall, Denton

TMBC, Longdendale Siege & David Moore: the truth

Hands up who believes the propaganda of Tameside MBC & Longdendale Siege Committee that the Longdendale Bypass is meant to relieve the three villages of congestion? If there are any that read this weblog, then this post may make you think again. For those who already suspect it is lies, here is the evidence that seems to have lain buried, until now.

Readers of local newspapers may be familiar with one David Moore. A person of that name used to regularly write in to advocate pro bypass views, as well as launch vitriolic attacks on anti-bypass campaigners (to be fair, we could be said to be the 'anti David Moore' in that respect, as it's our style too). Some examples are here and here (notice the classic Chronicle/Daily Mail/Fascist headline for the latter - 'Minority views are not valid'). We're not sure whether or not he had any direct affiliation with the Longdendale Siege Committee, but given his views and willingness to write to the newspapers (and regularly get published) we'd be surprised if he didn't. The fact that he lives in Hollingworth makes it seem highly unlikely that he is a stranger to them.

But what can be revealed with certainty is that someone called David Moore (with the fizzog displayed above) used to work for Tameside MBC. His contact details are on this page of this website. Go on, take some time to read what the website is about.

Yes, he was the Project Manager for the North European Trade Axis (NETA), an organisation seemingly run by TMBC from their offices. He also clearly has affiliations with the North West Regional Assembly, given the alternate email address on the contact page.

So what is NETA about? Lots of things, full of awful public language, the new bourgeois coded speech. But looking at the website and the conference reports, there talk of Transpennine Corridors, and 'management of M62 traffic flows'. But next to David Moore's face on the 'welcome' page is this more intelligible blurb:

"The NETA project seeks to develop and promote a West-East Eurocorridor extending from Northern and Southern Ireland across the Irish Sea to the Transpennine Corridor of Northern England and thence via the Humber ports and North Sea to the Netherlands, North Germany, Poland and beyond"

Given that TMBC are the facilitators of this project, we can now clearly link them with a project to develop their leg of a 'braided' (their terminology) trans-european transport network: in this context 'management of M62 traffic flows' can only mean one thing - diversion of key (trade) traffic elsewhere. Clearly, leaving the M1 to avoid the M62 and thereby accessing the M60 to head to the Western ports for Ireland and vice versa: the Longdendale Bypass.

Because the website was last updated in 2005, it looks like the project isn't exactly thriving, and we're not sure why this is. We wonder if the project is on hold, given the delays of the Public Inquiry.

We feel that this post is not the end of this issue, and we hope to return to it again in future.

In the meantime, if you really do believe the Longdendale Bypass is meant to relieve the three villages of congestion, ask Tameside and David Moore for explanations as to what NETA is all about. And come and tell us what they said. Food for throught.

NB: since we originally posted this article, the NETA website has mysteriously disappeared! We have changed the links to point to the pages captured by the internet archive.

Darth Butler

Day 6 of the Public Inquiry, and Darth Vader is in our midst. Yes, it's Brian Butler - Vice-Chairman of the Longdendale Siege Committee.

But hang on, this is the Vice-Chairman appearing? And why has the Chairman - Mike Flynn - come over all shy? Is it anything to do with the fact that Roy Oldham is part of his family? Or perhaps that in the 1970s, he was against a bypass (when the proposed route went through his backyard - such a NIMBY!)? We may never know, because it seems he doesn't want to answer awkward questions...

Anyway, Brian was there, and he and John Watson traded pleasantries, mainly about the size of Brian's petition. Butler was keen to elaborate:

When the Labour Government came to power and announced a review of the roads situation, we raised 9,000 signatures and presented it to the Government (page 16, line 7)

Now we've heard a lot about this petition, but our spies tell us that John Watson needs to pay a bit more attention to it: on the day, Butler trumpeted that it had 9,000 signatures. Which is interesting, because if this is the same petition that Purnell, Levitt and Co were flogging it in Downing Street back in 2003, it had 8,500 signatures.

Plus, it wasn't presented to the Government - it was presented to No. 10 Downing Street. This is important - there's a public record of petitions presented to Parliament in Hansard, but no equivalent for No. 10. That's because it's largely a PR exercise for the cameras. Furthermore, there are very specific and detailed rules about the format of petitions presented to Parliament. But it would be too risky for Siege to subject their petition to proper scrutiny, so they stuck to the 'Rock Star' petition approach.

Further back in time (2001), the petition was said to number 6,900. Now you might say 'time has moved on, it's grown, they've got more signatures', which could be true. But if it was submitted to No. 10 Downing Street in 2003 with 8,500 signatures, then it cannot have grown - unless this is not the same document.

But if, as the Vice-Chair of the Longdendale Siege Committee, Brian Butler has said there are 9,000, then there must be. After all, if it's a serious petition, it will have been collated correctly. Surely, a serious organisation must be conducting their own evidence to rigorous analysis? One hopes so, because otherwise, Butler and the rest of the Siege will have been misleading the Inspector...

And the accuracy of the petition was questioned in John Hall's cross-examination:

Q. Of these 9,000, signatures, Mr Butler, do they all denote postcodes?
A. I believe so. (page 22, line 10)

Hmmn. John Watson might want to go back and have a look. If the other examples of petitions submitted by this crew are anything to go by (here and here), there are few postcodes provided...

Oh, and if their data isn't sound, Purnell and Levitt will have been lead up the garden path by them as well. Oh dear...

Anyway, more braggadocio issued forth from Butler's mouth in the shape of his comments about the (oft-quoted) 90% of residents supporting the Bypass. Here he is again, in his element:

This support was also reflected by a poll at the Highways Agency meeting held in Hollingworth in 2001 and was estimated to be supported by 90 per cent of the several hundred who attended (page 16, line 14)

Well actually, it was 250 people (section 2.3). So 90% of that is 225 - hardly 90% of Longdendale as has been stated elsewhere, and it wasn't a poll in the sense of a secret ballot, without the intimidation factor from goons like Darth Butler or 'Harry Potter and the Duncan Hollows' et al.

From then on in, Butler's speech is one big rant, chiefly aimed at the CPRE, who he seems to have a fixation with. Plus the well-worn 'objectors are all outsiders' whinge - & this from a relative incomer (who's only lived in the area for 30 years!). Anyway, we dealt with this hypocrisy here, and we'll be having a look at the petition to see how many names it contains that are from 'over 30 miles away' (his words decrying objectors - page 17, line 30).

But the clincher from Butler was given out under questions by Chris Eldridge from Friends of the Earth when asked if Siege had asked Longdendale residents about what they wanted as a solution to traffic problems:

We had already decided that we wanted a bypass and that was what we petitioned on. We were not there to discuss alternatives with people (page 32, line 15)

Of course 'we' means relatives of the Leader of Tameside MBC, and their campaign meetings are attended by local Councillors and members of the Highways Agency and Carillion (contractors), their lavish 'Dick Turpin' roadsigns being funded by TMBC. We know full well who wants this road - and nothing else - and now Darth Butler has had the front to stand up and admit that they are blinkered to a road 'solution'.

(article edited to aid reading, 08/08/2007)