Action Group tells top Tory to resign
Jon Austin, Echo 27 January 2009

COUNCIL leader Malcolm Buckley has been told to resign over an unpaid debt with a Conservative Party developer.
   Bradgate Developments (Wickford) Ltd has not paid Basildon Council a £100,000 installment of the £720,000 it promised towards affordable housing.
   Ray Ride, Chelmsford Conservative councillor, is a director of the company, which signed a legal agreement to pay the £100,000 by last April, after getting permission for 173 flats in Lower Southend Road, Wickford.
   The Wickford Action Group has called on Mr Buckley to resign after it emerged he was wined and dined by the company before the agreement was signed in October 2006.
   Mr Buckley and deputy Tony Ball had dinner on the firm at La Toscana in Billericay High Street in December 2005, declaring hospitality of £50 and £75 respectively.
   David Harrison, action group member, said: "This council has allowed Bradgate to not come up with the hundred thousand pounds.
   "Perhaps councillor Buckley would now do the honourable thing. Resign his seat and test his actions at the ballot box."
   A year ago the Echo reported action group concerns over an earlier meeting when Mr Buckley and Mr Ball met Mr Ride to discuss announcing planning permission for the flats and the section 106, before it was approved.
   Mr Harrison, added in the meeting: "Would councillor Buckley agree that having met the applicants without officers prior to the application being dealt with, then at the committee on November 8, spoke in favour without declaring an interest.
   "Then just a few weeks later was being wined and dined by Bradgate Developments. The public perception of the leader might well be he has, by his actions, brought the council into disrepute."
   Mr Buckley said: "They should not try to make links which are tenuous and false.
   "I've been challenged by Wickford Action Group three times and they've lost every time."

Also today: Council deputy leader in hospitality rumpus