BOORMAN’S BACK
Former council manager joins crisis response team at Old Roar
PAUL McLAUGHLIN
Hastings Borough Council (HBC) has set up a dedicated emergency response taskforce to coordinate efforts to help those affected by the Old Roar Gill landslip. It will be joined by well-respected former council officer Kevin Boorman, notwithstanding his official retirement last year. His role is “to engage with affected residents and provide feedback to the taskforce”.
Julia Hilton, the Leader of the Council, made the announcement after a stormy meeting at the Hastings Centre on The Ridge on 5 March attended by up to 100 local residents.
Cllr Hilton had already issued a statement apologising to residents for the lack of support or information in the immediate aftermath of the landslide on 15 February. She promised that “we will do better in the future” and spoke of a commitment “to reviewing how we work in emergencies in the future to try to address some of the concerns that were raised by residents affected”.
Responding to this statement, Borough councillors and officers attended the meeting on 5 March in force. Present in addition to Cllr Hilton were Cllr Glenn Haffenden, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment, Community Safety and Health; Cllr Simon Willis, Housing Portfolio Holder; the two local ward councillors for Conquest, Cllrs Paul Foster and John Rankin; Victoria Conheady, Deputy Chief Executive of the Council; Chris Hancock, Head of Housing, and Natasha Tewkesbury, Head of Community and Regulatory Services.
The meeting got off to an inauspicious start when a request by officers for residents not to record the meeting was greeted with angry shouts from the floor. Order was restored only when it was agreed that a council representative would take notes.
Residents then vented their fury at the lack of contact from the council and its failure to keep them informed about what, if any, action it was taking. One angry resident said that HBC “should be ashamed and embarrassed to be sitting here. You do not understand. You are going home to your nice warm house tonight. I don’t have one. I have worked my whole life for that home. Everything that I have is in it….It has stood there for nearly 70 years, with no issues whatsoever.”
Cllr Hilton repeated her apologies but told the meeting that a new dedicated team had been set up, with liaison to be provided by Kevin Boorman, which “will enable us to do a much better job.” They would focus wholly on the issues at Old Roar Gill. She said she was still trying to secure funding for a similar team to coordinate efforts to deal with the ongoing landslip between West Hill Road and Caves Road in St Leonards.
COUNCIL RETRACTION
Residents responded by calling on the council to retract statements it had made about the origins of the landslip and, in particular, to share the details of a survey carried out by its consultants BdR (Civil and Structural Engineering) Ltd, which purported to show that the landslip had started on private land.
It was admitted by a council officer that the BdR graphs were not representative of the Old Roar Gill landslip but rather were a “general representational of a slip plane, and not an actual representation of what occurred in this instance”. For that, a survey would need to be carried out on private land – “not something the council could authorise, and therefore residents were advised to contact their own insurance companies to carry out these surveys.”
The landslip has so far claimed over 40 trees, and tonnes of earth are now at the bottom of the Gill, along with fences, decking, sheds and other debris. There are over 100 residents who face an uncertain future, not knowing if they will be able to get insurance and, if they do, whether they will be able to afford the new premiums. Three houses are now very close to the edge of the landslide, and two of them have been deemed to be too dangerous to live in, leaving four people now homeless.
CROWDFUNDER
Those affected have set up a Crowdfunder page to fund expert legal and technical support. Money raised will go towards challenging the conditions of the Emergency Prohibition Orders which now bar a number of residents from living in their homes. It’s also intended to commission environmental, soil and geotechnical reports which will consider the legacy issues of planning, environmental and water management and maintenance.
Dr Ralitsa Hiteva who lives in Foxcote, made a general appeal: “Everything we learn about the process, what kinds of expertise are needed and where and how to look for support, will be turned into open resources, guides and advice for any community affected by landslide in the UK. We hope that you will come on this journey with us and lend your support. Because this could happen to anyone. We still can’t believe it is happening to us.”
Sally-Ann Hart, MP for Hastings & Rye, visited last week to see the damage for herself. She described the devastation caused to homes and lives as “overwhelming”. She confirmed that, as well as contacting HBC to raise concerns on behalf of the affected residents, she would meet with Robbie Moore, the Minister for Water and Rural Growth within Defra (Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), to push for extra funding to tackle the issue. In particular, she would ask him to consider extending the Flood Re insurance initiative, which helps homeowners in flood-prone areas to obtain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost, to cover landslides.
She also called for a more strategic management framework of landslides, including better monitoring to detect early signs of instability. “Addressing landslides and climate change will require a team effort from all levels of government, experts and the community. Only by working together can we build resilience and protect our coastal areas.”
Contributions to the Crowdfund appeal can be made through the website crowdfunder.co.uk/p/falling-through-the-cracks-1.
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So the officer who misrepresented the Ecclesbourne Glen landslip has now been brought back from retirement to deal with the Old Roar Gill landslip! His role is “to engage with affected residents and provide feedback to the taskforce”.
I can only hope that this time around he will have more respect for the facts, listen to the residents and work in an open an transparent manner to resolve the issues rather than merely acting as an apologist for HBC interests
I will never forget him releasing a press release whilst Save Ecclesbourne Glen’s was having its first meeting with HBC. The press release was not mentioned in the meeting. The press release conflicted with what was said to us during the meeting and questioned much of the evidence SEG presented to the council. Councillors present at the meeting told us he acted unilaterally without any discussion with them.His press statement ignored all evidence and presented the SEG position as little more than a series of serious allegations. SEG asked for a public retraction of his false statements. We never got one.
His interview wih Radio Sussex concerning the landslip was a confection of spin, untruths and misrepresentation which completely ignored all evidence. He inverted cause and effect by claiming against all the evidence available that the landslip removed the trees in the caravan site bordering the glen.
In fact the fifty trees were extensively removed prior to the landslip by the caravan site owners. The HBC commisioned geotechnical report confirmed that removal of trees was a factor in the landslip. There is extensive evidence that the trees were removed in breach of planning conditions prior to the landslip.
Anybody can make a mistake. However when challenged about the accuracy of his claims HBC refused to make a public retraction or apology A shameful episode where a council employee supported a developer’s interests rather than protecting our Country Park.
He also claimed that the works in Rocklands had nothing to do with the landslip. An opinion that was contradicted by HBCs own Coffey geotechnical reports . The Coffey reports confirmed that terracing, and tree removals were factors.
Mr Boorman’s contribution to the Rocklands debcle was to spin and misrepresent on behalf of HBC. He was the only named officer criticised by the Bahcheli report into the Rocklands affair.