Chapter XIX In The Meeting House

 

 

 

It was dead on seven o’clock, with a large room crammed with people talking, arguing, checking maps, and looking for seats, that a gong was sounded. For a second there was an instant hush. A microphone was tapped and the deepened voice of Councillor Meena Chakravatty could be heard clearly above the renewed hubbub. “Will everyone please take their seats now? We don’t want to be late. We will start in exactly two minutes.” A gradual silence settled on the expectant crowd as people found their way to the few remaining seats. The rest were forced to stand in a corralled area around the back or in the side aisles of the hall. There were probably up to four hundred people there.

Meena and I scanned the crowds carefully. Luckily our stewards had stopped at least 10 people coming in with placards. We had ruled that no placards would be allowed at the meeting so the more committed demonstrators either remained outside handing out leaflets and talking to the new arrivals or came into the room anonymously. One of Smallbridge’s army had picked up a selection of leaflets which he passed up to Tim on the stage and we glanced at them quickly. There was the main rather boring but worthy information leaflet from the newly formed PPRAC – the Pinkerton Plaza Residents Action Committee, a leaflet with a picture of Daffodil Hill lamenting the blighting of the view of the London skyline from there. There were Socialist Workers’ Party and Green Party information leaflets and finally, a very unpleasant one, issued by one of the British nationalist organizations. It showed a businessman with an obviously Semitic face pouring money with one hand over a city skyline with the word “Framden” written on it while using the other to scoop out large chunks of property for himself. The chunks being dragged out included the name of a well-known London football stadium, a prominent London store and a collection of high rise buildings labelled “Pinkerton Plaza”. One of his feet stood on a crushed tower of Big Ben and the other on the tower of Framden Civic Centre. Eloquent perhaps but exceedingly nasty. I kept this leaflet.

Meena quickly got the meeting under way. She introduced herself, stressing that she was quite impartial and not even a member of the Planning Committee. Then she made some polite noises about the importance of the issue when so many people had turned up and the national media were present. She stated that this was an information meeting only and there would be no voting at the end. Then she proceeded to introduce the people on the platform and Dr Wheeler of the PPRAC on the floor of the hall. The tone of the procedure could be seen when Melanie Sheldrake got a strong round of applause and even some cheers. As a result, when Smallbridge’s name was given his claque made sure that he was too was greeted with some extended applause. The old doctor also received a polite applause which was also matched by the applause for the local Ward Councillor -Stelios Karamanlis. It looked like it could be a bumpy night.

Meena had barely sat down when it became clear just how bumpy it could become. A somewhat drunken voice somewhere from the back of the hall shouted out “Careful where you sit, love. It might be the mayor’s chair!” Many people laughed.

Meena’s response was so ruthless it was beautiful. “Will the person who made that comment leave the meeting immediately? Yes, you Sir. Please leave now. Yes, now (as the victim of her wrath mumbled his slurred protestations)! We are benefiting from the hospitality of a religious organization that does not allow alcohol. It would be the height of disrespect to them for a drunken person to roar out interruptions at a meeting like this. Yes, Sir, you are drunk! You cannot even stand up properly. Nor is this the place for frivolous comments about Framden Council, bandied about by the press. This is a vitally important meeting consulting the residents about a large development in their midst.” Her words were met first by a stunned silence, then by polite applause balanced by cries of “What about free speech?”, followed in turn by some individual barracking of the reluctant drunk. However, after her last sentence she received enormous and enthusiastic applause. The drunk was escorted out. The meeting settled down again, but Meena held it firmly in her grasp.

As a result Lord Smallbridge was able to make his opening remarks in silence and Mr Lamsden then made his 10 minute presentation outlining the details which we were already so familiar to me. Next it was my turn. I described how the Council would be approaching each aspect of the development, on what criteria we make our decision and why on balance the planning guidelines were favourable to the development. (I had to be very careful here.) I stressed of course that we had not yet reached any final conclusion but were obliged to “be minded to support” the application (some hisses there) unless we received sufficient arguments of quality from the public. I stressed that those who criticized the development must give adequate reasons suitable on planning grounds which excluded comments about declining values of property and the supposed motivation of the developers. Then, in an emotional conclusion, I held up the anti-Semitic leaflet given me by Smallbridge. Without giving all the details in it I pointed out how leaflets like those were poisoning the atmosphere of the debate. Frankly, that absurd leaflet was a godsend to me.

After this Councillor Karamanlis made a very short statement saying he was neither in favour nor against the development but as the local ward Councillor he was here to listen to the voice of the people, etc. etc. He promised that these voices will be heard again at the Planning Committee on 12th July when the final decision was going to be made.

Then Dr Wheeler was allowed to speak. A microphone stand had been set up in the front row. He was a decent old stick and he walked up to the stand with great dignity shuffling his papers in his shaky hand. He began by squeezing himself completely into the narrow parameters I had set in my speech. He declared that he was distancing himself from any emotional and racist arguments and then began a 10 minute discourse into the main objections of the residents. As he was an elderly man and his voice was weak and monotonous, the audience began slowly to lose track of his train of thought. His main arguments were lucid enough to me as I was quite familiar with the arguments and had asked similar questions myself. Yet once he had gone into the technical area of levels of pollution and noise and traffic modulating figures he had lost the audience that was outwardly sympathetic to him. Nobody, neither us on the platform, nor his supporters, could follow his opaque interpretation of housing density figures and how it was either in line, or out of line, with the Borough Plan. After about 10 minutes of this a couple of voices began to call out “Speak up!” (Were they not the voices of people with Russian accents?) The level of noise of people fidgeting and talking quietly among themselves indicated that Dr Wheeler had lost most of his audience. On a couple of occasions Meena even had to call the meeting to order. She even used the gong.

After he had finished his points Meena suggested that the importance of his contribution should elicit an immediate rebuttal from the experts, i.e. Mr Lamsden and Chris Finneston. By the time both of them had droned on through their exhaustive and critical comments the case against the scheme, as presented by Dr Wheeler, seemed practically dead and buried.

Meena now announced that members of the public could make their contribution by coming to the microphone. “Please keep it short so that as many people as possible will be able to contribute. And also please keep it relevant to planning issues.”

This was the moment for all the eccentrics to come forward and make their contributions. We heard from cyclists, environmentalists and campaigners worried about immigrants moving in. There was a mother worried about lack of places in the local schools. (Actually the opposite was true.) A number of people were still raising the hairy old chestnut of diminished views of the sky-line from the park on Daffodil Hill. I nodded to Chris in this regard, aware that the GLA had not yet sent a written representation on this matter. He gave me the thumbs up indicating he had a comment to make.

After the first ten contributions Meena had again asked for comments from the experts. After Mr Lamsden had dealt with some of the technical points, Meena herself had a one sentence comment on the likelihood of more children moving into the area as a result of this development. Chris then announced that, while no written confirmation had yet arrived from the GLA, he had been told by one of the panel members for the committee dealing with the strategic views over London, that the Pinkerton Plaza complex would actually be a welcome addition to the London sky-line. This ambivalent statement was met in deathly silence. I sensed a problem here. I was right.

“I’d like to see that written down on paper,” said another voice from the platform. “I think it is ridiculous to suggest that this development would be anything but harmful to the traditional magnificent panorama of London that you get from the top of the hill.” Melanie Sheldrake’s sudden intervention was met with a storm of applause, even cheers. She had seized the little stand with the hand-mike from right in front of Meena and launched into a full counter-attack.

“You may be interested to know,” she went on relentlessly, “that the opposition party has considered all aspects of this so-called development and has come to the conclusion that it is not fitting for this Borough.” Suddenly the hall erupted like a volcano. Those opposed to the development had watched glumly as their case was effectively ripped to shreds in front of their eyes. Now, with one blow, Melanie Sheldrake has restored their confidence, given them hope and actually whipped them into frenzy. Even Smallbridge’s rowdy claque could not rescue us at that moment. However there was one immediate hook to latch onto immediately. As Councillor Sheldrake was about to launch into a catalogue of why she, and supposedly now her party, disapproved the plans, I seized the hand-mike from its perch in front of her and held it in my hand.

“Councillor Miss Sheldrake needs to be reminded that there is no party politics in debates over the merits of planning issues.” I shouted over the noise. The room was suddenly enveloped in quiet. “Until now both parties have held a united front on this matter. She should not be making party political capital out of this issue or we will all lose. If we eventually decide to oppose the scheme we do it on non-political issues, and we do it together. (“Then do it!” somebody yelled.) If we support the application, we do not do it on party political issues, and we do it together. On the planning merits of the application alone. If we do not do it this way we all lose and the Government Planning Inspectorate imposes a decision upon us, whether we like it or not.” My intervention was really a piece of mystification but it had had its desired effect. It perplexed everybody. The stony silence in the hall was broken by some applause. I did not take much guesswork to know where it came from. However, it did draw in some polite applause from further afield.

I put the mike back on the stand which I handed back to Meena. But La Sheldrake was not to be baulked. “Councillor Axtell is misleading you,” she shouted out loud without recourse to a microphone. “Councillors in his political group take political decisions all the time on planning. (“Shame!”) They make their deals with big developers regardless of public opinion. Their talk of planning criteria is just a cover up for undermining democracy. They do not care what the people want.”

As she was shouting this out without benefit of a microphone her voice became shriller and shriller. The more diehard opponents cheered her on but the majority of the audience was not so sure, especially as supporters of the development had now recovered their voice and had begun heckling the angry councillor.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Meena was speaking into her mike again. “I am not really in favour of members of the Council using this public forum for pursuing their party political agendas.” She got applause for that. Curiously some of it was because of Sheldrake’s political posturing and some because of mine. The common denominator was everyone’s mutual dislike of politicians and party politics.

Meena hit the gong again. A momentary silence reigned. “I intend now to let the people speak again. (More applause) I shall ask more members of the audience to make their contributions and would be grateful if the people on the platform could make notes and then answer a little later, when we have given as many people as possible a chance to make a contribution.”

With that Meena picked up the microphone, got up and, to my amazement, walked straight off the stage into the auditorium below. “Right. Who wants to be first?” The audience’s gain was our loss. We on the platform had now been deprived of our main microphone. It was like a coup d’état. For the time being, however, it had the benefit of keeping the microphone away from the Bitch.

Meena moved around the hall with her mike in her hand talking, cajoling, charming, asking volunteers for comments and then moving swiftly around the hall, sometimes actually running, to ensure that the next speaker was able to address the platform with a microphone in his/her hand. It was an advanced non-hierarchical form of chairmanship of a kind practiced by energetic television performers. I was lost in admiration for her.

She had taken more than 20 different speakers in the course of the next 40 minutes.  There were a number of questions about the height of the building and more questions about traffic flows. There were two questions about the apparent resignation of Owen Draycott which Meena simply classified as out of order. Then there was a schoolteacher who looked forward to more children coming to her school as a result of the development. One person asked about an ancient right of way through the site and the need to protect the remaining trees in one corner of the site near the canal. He also asked about the likelihood of a replanting programme to introduce trees once the buildings had been finished.

During this exchange, one man in the middle of the hall kept jumping up excitedly. He was a parent at Swinton Middle School. He seemed most put out by the teacher’s comments and kept interrupting her. Meena shouted at him once, telling him to take his seat. This was only effective for a minute. Soon he was up again. Suddenly the towering figure of Nikolai stood up only 2 seats away from the heckler. “Sit, svoloch,” he hissed. There was total silence in the hall. The disgruntled parent suddenly lost all will to heckle further. After that he was quiet.

After these mostly illuminating but generally hostile contributions Meena asked us to comment from the platform. “Time to hear our experts,” she said in a jokey voice, as if casting doubt on our supposed expertise. Clever girl! That was a good popular touch. British crowds don’t like experts.

She walked back to the stage and sat down purposefully amongst us again, as if she were legitimizing us with her presence and her microphone. I thought to let Melanie speak first, but, as I hesitated, Stelios Karamanlis put his oar in. He made the fairly banal comment that he had no commitment to the project and will ask for permission to address the Planning Committee after he had taken stock of all the opinions expressed today.

Melanie Sheldrake now waded in. She was quite merciless. She mocked Stelios’ pusillanimous contribution and said that outright opposition was the only possible response by a local councillor to this planning application. She claimed that there was no assurance the developers will build what they promised and that once they have erected the buildings no court of law and no government ministry would back this Council’s attempt to enforce a destruction or modification of the building. She described the area as being permanently “blighted by this monstrosity of a building”, painting a dark vision where residents will have nowhere to shop or take their children to school. She argued that there was no timetable for replanting and other environmental work around the building and along the canal. Residents would be “marooned in a desert of mud”, to use her emotional phrase. Aware that the TV cameras were watching her during this ranting diatribe I moved as close to her as possible shaking my head and muttering strong word of dissent in order to distract viewers on the screen. After a time, she noticed my spoiling tactics and commented on my “typically negative response” to any positive criticism of this development “by a Russian multi-millionaire gangster.” She was hissed at these words by the Smallbridge gang at the front, but many cheered her on.

I could see Lord Smallbridge was getting more and more angry and frustrated. I was also aware the temperature in the hall was rising dangerously. As Sheldrake continued to pour out her bile, I chose to interrupt her. “Can Councillor Sheldrake please comment on the planning merits, not on her own prejudices?” I was applauded by some and challenged by other hecklers. Meena was trying to silence these hecklers but was beginning to struggle. Her voice was starting to rise dangerously in tone. Melanie Sheldrake chimed in again complaining about these supposed attempts to silence her.

I took this opportunity to lob Meena a quick written note “You are looking very sexy today. Nice outfit” I folded it and passed it to her. She looked quickly at my note and gave me a cocktail of mixed expressions. Then she topped it with an impish smile but with a shake of the head. The note had its effect though. She calmed down immediately as she radiated in her sudden raised self-esteem. Then her voice dropped nearly an octave as she pronounced in a low but determined voice into her microphone “Councillor Miss Sheldrake, Councillor Axtell, can we let someone else speak, please?”

“Lord Smallbridge?” (He shook his head.) “Mr Lamsden? Mr Finneston?”

At this point Noel Graham indicated his wish to speak. The largely pink and brown- faced audience quietened down expectantly at the sight of a black-faced speaker on the platform.

 “Good citizens of Framden,” Noel began. It sounded archaic but the hall listened in attentive silence. “I know it is often difficult to accept changes. Yet some changes have already happened. There were jobs here once in traditional industries. Now there are none. Will voting down this scheme bring those jobs back? We have staff shortages in our hospitals, our schools, our nurseries, our libraries, even the police. This is because they say they cannot afford to live here. We all say this is a shame. But what do we do about it? Here we have an imaginative scheme which offers jobs and also offers housing which will be at affordable prices for nurses, our teachers, our cleaners, our policemen and our policewomen. And you want us to vote it down just like that? We are still looking at the merits and demerits of this scheme and we are listening to your voices, but please remember that our responsibility is to wider issues than merely whether there is going to be x extra number of cars, or tall buildings that may or may not be seen from one hill in London. What I say, ladies and gentlemen is: let’s not kill the goose until we know what eggs it can lay.” This wonderful little speech was greeted with considerable applause from quite large sections of the hall and with total stunned silence from committed opponents. I shook Noel’s hand and congratulated him.

 Chris Finneston now waded in on the points members of the public had made earlier. I watched his contribution in a semi-trance with my brain coasting on neutral now. I was emotionally worn out. But I sensed that the meeting had now drifted out of danger and that little new information would be forthcoming. I noticed that the TV cameras were all down now, except curiously the German team. Meena however was still riding high. In fact she was now quite a star.

She asked the public how many more still wanted to speak. Three people put up their hands. “I see three hands. Any more? No? OK, let these three be the last speakers. Then a last word from Dr Wheeler and then Councillor Axtell will tell us what happens next.”

Somebody in the hall called for a vote but Meena reminded everybody that she had warned at the very beginning there would be no voting. The meeting had lasted two hours and Meena was slowly winding it down.

As Dr Wheeler finished speaking I took the microphone from Meena to make my closing remarks. I described how people could still make representations to us, either by fax or e-mail or through the local ward Councillor, Stelios Karamanlis. I then described again what were planning criteria and what were not and the timetable for the planning applications. I thanked the developers for being willing to discuss the situation in an open forum like this meeting; I thanked the Quakers for letting us use the hall, the stewards and the police for their assistance and the members of the public for attending. I kept my final comments to the end when I thanked Meena Chakravatty for her excellent chairmanship of the meeting. The hall burst into spontaneous applause. With a sigh I realized that with Meena’s help we were able to ride a difficult storm and that now there was very little to prevent us from finally approving the development.

Yet even at the end Melanie Sheldrake managed to upset the apple cart, attempting to hijack our audience if not our meeting. She took the microphone as soon as I had placed it on the table and asked members of the public who were opposed to the development to sign a petition at the back of the hall. She also announced that one day before the Planning Committee, the PPRAC (of which it turned out now she was Honorary President), was holding a special public meeting to which all members of the public were invited. Damn it, I thought, there would be an organized protest after all and just before the event!

“Meeting is over!” announced Meena and hit the gong again. Slowly members of the public began to disperse. It was indeed a slow process. Some continued to look at the plans around the sides of the hall. Some gathered around the unofficial petition gatherers. Others surrounded Lord Smallbridge and Mr Lamsden. A group of participants, including Dr Wheeler came up onto the stage and joined in a discussion with Melanie Sheldrake.

I had barely stood up in my place when I was approached by the be-whiskered gentleman with the military bearing, whom I had first met as we entered the building together one hour before the meeting started. “Well done, Councillor, congratulations on the way you conducted the meeting. There’s nothing like firm guided democracy the British way, eh? Apart from a sense of fair play, of course. You did give everybody a fair crack of the whip. Anyway, Councillor, I know you are busy. My name is Roger, Roger Clements. Perhaps we could meet briefly at some time. I really would like to talk to you about this development. Very very soon. My outfit would appreciate it.”

“Well, ….er, Mr Clements (“Please call me Roger,” he chimed in.). Yes, er Roger. Very nice. I’d love to. But I am so busy at the moment.”

“Don’t worry. Here’s my card. I’ll be in touch.”

He smiled and walked away. I looked at his card. All it said was Roger Clements and gave a mobile telephone number. That was very mysterious.

I came down to the floor below the stage. Meena, Stelios and Noel were already there, along with Chris Finneston and the Chief Press Officer.

“Fucking brilliant, Meena!” said Noel.

“Yes, she’s a real star,” I confirmed. I gave her a hug and kiss on the cheek. “I think we all deserve a drink now.”

The others agreed. They began to file out slowly towards the exit with many members of the public congratulating Meena or questioning Stelios as their local member of the Council.

I left them for a minute and went back to the main platform to gather my papers into my briefcase. As I did so Melanie Sheldrake was still busy in discussion with her fellow conspirators, including Dr Wheeler, only a few feet from me. I took the opportunity to thank Wheeler, a little patronisingly, for his contribution to the meeting.

“I hear from Councillor Sheldrake that you are still having a meeting separately on this issue.” He nodded. “Will it be a public meeting, or a closed meeting?”

“What’s it to you?” Councillor Sheldrake intoned, having obviously overheard our conversation.

“It’s a valid question,” I responded, but ignoring her and addressing Dr Wheeler. “If you wanted more information, one of the Council officers, say, from the Planning Department or the Highway Authority, could attend the meeting to ensure that you were all basing your information on the correct facts. If you wanted me to I could turn up myself and speak to everyone about the issues and the procedures.”

“No thank you, Councillor Axtell,” snapped Melanie Sheldrake. “We won’t want you there spying on us.”

“That’s typically uncivil of you,” I said. Actually I was livid at her insult and barely able to suppress my desire to explode. “I am merely trying to help this organization in getting all the facts. If they just rely on you for the facts, they would be living in cloud cuckoo land.” My voice was quite raised now.

Conversations stopped. Eyes turned. I became aware that we were becoming the centre of attention. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Meena and Noel hurrying back towards me.

“No, Councillor Axtell,” she hissed. “You can stay away from my meetings. We don’t want your crooked facts. The facts? Look at your friend Draycott. I know others are on the take. Those are the real facts. No, you go to your own meetings. Like that leather boat thing, you’re going to.”

I just saw red! “How dare you!” I roared.

Now Sheldrake stood up, white with anger. “How dare I? What am I to do when you stick your dirty correspondence right under my nose” she began. I was still seething but this argument looked totally hopeless. I felt defeated as well as embarrassed.

“Oh get on a broomstick and fly away, you psycho,” I threw up my arms and yelled at her somewhat childishly in parting. I turned away.

Now she erupted. It was like a category five hurricane hitting the coast. She launched herself at me trying to throw punches and slaps in the direction of the back of my head. She seemed completely out of control. I stopped and looked at her in amazement. The ice maiden was erupting. Some of the people around her tried to restrain her. She pulled herself clear of them and then strode up to me and slapped me hard across my left cheek.