TORIES ENTER FANTASY LAND WITH CRANE VALLEY MASTERPLAN OPTIONS

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 16th Jun 2003

Simon Hughes MP (Lib Dem Mayoral Candidate), Dee Doocey (Lib Dem Prospective GLA Candidate) with leading campaigners in Twickenham

The Lib Dems today strongly attacked as the Tories' 4 "Options" for the Crane Valley as finance-driven and hastily thrown together.

Councillor Martin Elengorn, Environment spokesman said "These are not so much options as a series of half-considered wheezes hastily thrown together. They all assume the participation of the Tertiary College and the Adult College which may or may not be forthcoming. "

"My understanding is that the Tertiary College Governors are not interested in moving in with the Adult College in a 7-storey block on the Sorting Office site, losing their Sports Hall and having inadequate playing fields."

"Only one proposal, Option 4, preserves the green corridor linking Crane Park and Twickenham. But for some reason this option is made to depend on the building of a railway viaduct for a Heathrow-Kingston link. This is not in the gift of the Council and will either happen or not happen, independently of whether any of these Options go forward."

"To judge these so-called Options, residents need to know what analysis has taken place of the landscape and ecological value of the Metropolitan Open Land proposed to be Re-designated, what the various proposed partners think, what financial assessment there has been of the various proposals and what is the time-table."

"The Lib Dem Group support the view of residents that what happens to the Crane Valley is a planning issue where preservation of irreplaceable Open Space and Wildlife Corridors is a top priority. The Tories have got this thoroughly muddled up with their financial difficulties after the failure of their secondary PFI bid. It seems unlikely they will produce an acceptable plan from these four Options in time for the resumption of the UDP inquiry in October. Rather they may well be forced to retreat as they have done already on many of their proposals to sell off Open Land".