The debate about the future of council housing in Crawley is heating up as the ballot of tenants gets ever closer and it is likely to get a lot more frantic in the remaining 5 months until the ballot takes place.

There are a lot of aspects to this worth mentioning, but the one I am interested in just at the moment is the timing of that ballot, and that is because I just found an interesting and amusing document.

First a bit of background: originally the plan of the council, when it was controlled by the Labour group, was to hold a ballot this month and to provide the tenants with objective, neutral information about the options. Since taking control of the council the Tories have made two changes to that: they have postponed the ballot at some cost, and have decided that the Council’s information will not be neutral or objective, but will promote the Tory party official line and be backed up by relentless bullying and scaremongering.

The document I found in my drawer was an election leaflet from May this year. At the end it says:

Why does the Labour Government want to put all its Council Tenants through so many hoops – at a cost of £600,000? Bring on the ballot, hear the result and let’s get on with life.

This was a leaflet from my own councillor, Alan Quirk, who I am pretty sure did not vote against the decision to not bring on the ballot and get on with it, but to postpone the ballot and add to the £600,000 cost. It was the nearest thing to a specific promise on the page, I wonder what caused him to change his mind?