This morning I sent an open letter to the Mayor of Enfield calling out an email which contains wholly untrue and (potentially) deliberately misleading statements.
This email was sent to local residents like myself from the Mayor’s office in response to requests for an extraordinary meeting of Enfield Council to be convened urgently so that the new, hugely expanded Edmonton incinerator could be discussed by Councillors before the contract for its development is signed in a few days’ time.
Myself and many fellow Enfield residents wrote to the Mayor last week, following a call from the Stop The Incinerator campaign for residents to write in and request that an extraordinary meeting of the Council be summoned to debate the issue before the contract is signed. This followed a request for such a meeting being put to the Mayor, signed by five Councillors in the Community First Group (which includes Lib Dem, Green and Independent Councillors) on 4th January 2022.
Myself and fellow residents who responded to Stop the Incinerator’s call received no reply from the Mayor’s office until yesterday, In it, Enfield Mayor Cllr Sabri Ozaydin falsely claimed that he had no power under the Council’s constitution to convene a meeting of the full Council that would meet earlier than 19th January (by which time the contract for the incinerator would already have been signed) and in fact he would not convene an extraordinary meeting until 26th January – somewhat farcically on the same night as an ordinary meeting of the Council already scheduled for that date.
The Mayor's response contained material falsehoods concerning Council procedure and wrongly sought to blame the diligent Community First Councillors who requested an extraordinary meeting of the Council for his own failure to convene a timely meeting.
Ultimately, the Mayor has sat on his hands and done nothing after receiving a request from his fellow Councillors to call an emergency meeting of the Council to debate this monumental issue before the future of so many Enfield residents is signed away.
He continued to sit on his hands and do nothing when he received many more requests for such an emergency meeting from local residents such as myself. And now, in the ultimate slap in the face to those calling for the democratic debate Enfield is absolutely entitled to and desperately deserves, the Mayor dares to pass the buck and falsely claim that only if the Councillors had requested the meeting earlier then the debate could have taken place earlier.
That is categorically not true and deeply misleading. The Council constitution is unequivocal on this point and says quite clearly that the Mayor could have called the meeting at any time.
My full open letter to the Mayor of Enfield can be read here: mayorofenfield-letter.mattjmclaren.com
The full story, including additional comment from sitting Enfield Liberal Democrat Councillor Ayfer Orhan is detailed here: https://www.enfield-libdems.org.uk/enfield_lib_dems_slam_mayor_over_misleading_claims
