Margaret Pindar Hits Out At David Elvidge Over Grovehill Site

Margaret Pindar has accused a fellow Councillor David Elvidge historical amnesia.

Councillor Margaret Pinder, Chair of Beverley Town Council’s Policy Committee and Labour’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Beverly and Holderness feels the Conservatives are muscling in on a Labour incentive in order to ‘get their name in the press’.

The former Mayor of Beverley who will be going head to head with Graham Stuart in May and feels that Cllr Elvidge, a former member of the Labour Party is using Grovehill for his own political gain, she said;

“In 2012 Labour on Beverley Town council filed a motion opposing East Riding Council’s plans for retail development on the Grovehill site in Beverley.”

“Now these plans have fallen through, Conservative ward councillor David Elvidge has been trying to recycle this initiative as his own.”

“In a striking turnabout Councillor Elvidge has announced he believes residents should be consulted and set out what he and other ward councillors would like to see built on the site.”

“In an ideal world we’d have some sort of engineering or manufacturing process . Something high tech, or something in support of the offshore wind industry in Hull- anything that would create jobs.”

“I brought this before Council in 2012 when I was Chair and Mayor of the town. This was a Labour initiative in which we expressed serious concerns about the decision of East Riding Council’s Cabinet to sell the Grovehill site to the highest bidder rather than considering the best use of this last piece of land available for significant development within Beverley.”

“We were able to pass a motion at Full Council on 19 November 2012 expressing our concerns together with a call for the land to be used either for social and affordable housing, a science park and/or light industrial units.”

“Typically, this was resisted by our Conservative councillors including Cllr Elvidge, who passed off talk of the site being sold for sale for retail as “kite-flying”, and ignored by East Riding Council.”

“Now this has become a sensitive topic once again and is attracting media attention, it would seem that Cllr Elvidge and his colleagues are developing historical amnesia and changing their tune for their own political ends.”

“Local residents are less forgetful, however, and should remember where this idea originated in that it was local Labour councillors who pushed for an alternative use for the site when East Riding first declared it was to be sold for retail in 2012.”

Cllr Elvidge left Labour and joined the Conservative Party in June 2010, saying at the time the he felt he had ‘more in common with one group then any other and that is why I have decided to join the Conservative party.’

He stood for election and was successful winning a seat at East Riding Council just months later at the local elections as the Conservatives enjoyed a clean sweep in Beverley.