A Big No-No

And the villain still pursued her, yes, he chased her high and low
I don't know what he asked her, but she always answered , "No."

As I mentioned at the start of this month the East Riding of Yorkshire Council was to hold an exercise in local democracy, a referendum of those who live in the villages and towns surrounding Hull, following noises from Hull City Council that it might want to expand its boundaries. Everyone expected a majority against expansion and so it turned out with over 96% against! So no big surprise there. What was surprising and most pleasing was the turnout; over 75% of those entitled to vote bothered to fill in the form and post it off. That's better than some recent general elections. It might have cost the ERYC £1 per vote but this was a loud and clear "keep your thieving hands off" message from Hull's neighbours. 

Not that Hull Council will take any notice of this at all, indeed the leader of HCC (who it has to be said looked mightily pissed in the American sense of the word) is still spreading scaremongering tales of the area losing out on economic growth, jobs, investment, blah, blah if Hull doesn't get its way, ...and apparently we're asking the wrong questions  yadda yadda yadda ... all desperate nonsense from desperate politicians.

HCC are paying for an 'independent' commission into all this. The leader of this commission, the life president of a leading local company, states not to have discussed any of the issues with any Hull councillor nor indeed does he actually know any Hull councillors. And I am Marie of Romania ...

So to the results: Question one was "should the boundaries of Hull be extended to include Anlaby with Anlaby Common, Bilton, Cottingham, Elloughton cum Brough, Hedon, Hessle, Kirk Ella, North Ferriby, Preston, Swanland, Welton and Willerby?" 51,312 voted no, 1,887  voted yes.

And question two was "do you think Hull City Council should be allowed to build on land it owns in the green open spaces separating Hull and the towns and villages in the East Riding?" 50,981 voted no, 2,167 voted yes