"Obsessive crackpot with spurious bee in her bonnet" now let loose in House
of Lords much to dismay of RBC who keep on persucting and defaming in order
to help prop up ailing Environment Agency and cement company?
In Today's Rugby Advertiser...
CAMPAIGN'S A '£50,000 DRAIN'
A FURIOUS campaigner has hit back at claims that £50,000 of council funds have been 'unreasonably' spent, dealing with her long-term battle against Cemex's Rugby works.
In a recent letter to Lilian Pallikaropoulos' lawyers Simon Warren, chief executive for Rugby Borough Council, said the figure was an 'estimation' of money spent dealing with her continuing protests over the Lawford Road site.
The letter said Mrs. Pallikaropoulos - a member of the Rugby in Plume group - sent more than 350 requests for information and other correspondence to the council's environmental health staff alone, since July 2005.
Mr. Warren described her behaviour as 'totally unreasonable' and condemned the 'frequently abusive or derogatory tone' of requests.
However, Mrs. Pallikaropoulos said: "This figure is totally unjustified.
"They are trying to fight someone who is only asking questions that they should be able to answer. It's malicious and vindictive and it's an attempt to hide the truth," she claimed.
Mr. Warren said the figure was a 'reasonable' calculation based on the volume of correspondence from Mrs. Pallikaropoulos.
Any single request for information had to be sent to four senior council officers and a minimum of two-three hours of workers' time then had to be spent dealing with each single query.
Mr. Warren described Mrs. Pallikaropoulos's behaviour as 'manifestly unreasonable', and claimed it diverted resources from other matters and in many cases were repeats of previous requests.
She said: "The reason we put in these questions is because we want to unearth the truth, and I would say the people of Rugby would say it's a small amount to uncover that."
Mrs. Pallikaropoulos' solicitors have since written back, rebutting the 'distressing' allegations.
WHAT do you think? Are Lilian Pallikaropoulos's protests worth £50,000 of YOUR money? Contact us via our postbag or email us on stuart.turner@rugbyadvertiser.co.uk.
The Editor Peter Aengenheister said this...
Editor's Comment: Local hero or crackpot?!
THIS week Advertiser editor Peter Aengenheister talks about one of the town's most well-known people - Lilian Pallikaropoulos.
Lilian Pallikaropoulos - a local hero or a strange obsessive?
Lilian, as most will know, is Rugby's greatest campaigner against the Cemex Cement Plant in Lawford Road.
She would like to see it closed down. She claims, backed up by an incredible amount of alleged evidence, the cement works is poisoning the people of Rugby.
Despite hiccups and incidents which clearly have caused problems, Cemex most vehemently denies this is the case, and says the filtering is far safer than ever at the plant.
Rugby Borough Council is integrally linked to the issue, being the organisation which issued planning permissions and has been monitoring emissions.
In her own words, Lilian has spent thousands of pounds of her own money in her battle to prove her point - she has also used acres of space on the Rugby Advertiser's letters pages.
But now, Rugby Borough Council's chief executive has written to Lilian's lawyers pointing out that her persistent requests for information have cost the council, and therefore the tax-payer, at least £50,000 to date.
So, is Lilian P an obsessive crackpot with a spurious bee in her bonnet? Or will history show that lives could have been saved if people had heeded her claims...
I have no idea... but I defend her right to campaign. If she is found to be right, £50,000 is nothing. If not, I think the council has spent big money in far worse ways... one only needs to mention the Princess Diana memorial..
5 comments:
GO! GO! Lilian!!
WARNING TO THE COURTS, AND OTHERS! BEE WARE OF OBSESSIVE CRACKPOT WITH BEE IN BONNET!
Oh HANG THE WOMAN! That's what I say - well ONLY IF RBC has the irrefutable evidence against her?
So SURELY if this woman "LILIAN" is truly a "crackpot with spurious notions" how then, and why, has she proceeded so far through the High Court and House of Lords. Are their Lordships not capable of smelling a rat?
RBC officers and 48 councillors, (ALL with a vested interest to hide the ILLICIT goings on), SURELY could not possibly be SUGGESTING that the WHOLE COURT PROCESS has been fooled by the one "crackpot"? And by a whole army of lawyers? That is what they appear to be saying. Ask yourself, who is more nuts/gullible/prone to malpractise - the courts, or RBC?
It could not POSSIBLY be because those august bodies in the Courts recognise the TRUTH when they see it, and are in a position to call a spade a spade? No, surely not?
I suggest that RBC officers and 48 councillors write to the Courts and WARN them to:
LOOK OUT! AN OBSESSIVE CRACKPOT WITH A SPURIOUS BEE IN HER BONNET" IS ON THE LOOSE!
Rugby Council and CEMEX should start thinking about an exit strategy with regard to Lilian Pallikaropoulos. She's won, but you won't believe it until you read it in a major national paper.
Here's part of the reality that should make you think. I've recently examined infant mortality rates in electoral wards around 15 incinerators, 2 oil refineries, 2 power stations, 1 foundry and a cement works. In every case I found elevated rates in the downwind zones compared with upwind zones.
Surely someone at a Primary Care Trust will have looked at a set of infant mortality data and coloured in a ward map with green for the wards with zero infant deaths [eg Dothill ward, Telford, which is upwind of Ironbridge Power Station and has had zero infant deaths in each of the 13 years 1993-2005 according to ONS data] and different colours for different ranges of infant deaths. The "zeros" are very important as they are always in locations that are free from the PM2.5 emissions from industrial processes such as that carried out in Rugby and elsewhere.
There has been a lack of due diligence by the Environment Agency, the Health Protection Agency, the majority of [if not all] Primary Care Trusts and also the Environmental Health officers of Borough Councils.
Perhaps Rugby Council will send Lilian Palikaropoulos a table of electoral wards with the numbers of infant deaths in each ward for the last 15 years.
It's Rugby Council who have wasted money fighting a rearguard action of cover-up.
If emissions from CEMEX's plant are not harming health, why haven't Rugby Council & CEMEX published all the data, together with hospital admissions by electoral ward and age standardised mortality rates, infant mortality rates etc. - all by ward. If what they claim is true, they will be world-famous. It will be like the opposite of Erin Brockovich & will deserve a major film as well as making medical journal history.
Sounds pretty clear cut to me... It's about time the people of Rugby stood up and supported Lilian's stand. Surely they can see that this plant is spewing out goodness knows what over the town! Let's hear a few more voices in support of her campaign, and take down Rugby Cement once and for all
Those people in & around Rugby who think that Lilian Palikaropoulos is either right or wrong about her concerns over PM2.5 emissions from CEMEX's plant should look at the differential in childhood asthma, age standardised mortality rates and infant mortality rates in two groups of electoral wards around Ironbridge power station.
The coloured ward map at http://www.ukhr.org/incinerator/ironbridgewardmap.pdf shows a group of wards coloured orange where there were 6591 live births and fifty-one infant deaths recorded in the 8-year period 1998-2005 according to the Office for National Statistics.
Six of the seven green-coloured wards in the "upwind" area had 1302 live births and zero [ie no infant deaths at all] infant deaths during the same 8-year period.
Dr Catherine Woodward's report which claims to prove that emissions from the power station have no measurable impact on health & mortality is online, but she only considered data for four "downwind" wards and "forgot" to examine data in any upwind wards.
I hope that residents of Rugby will find the Shropshire data of interest, and start looking at ward-based data in & around the Borough of Rugby.
Kind regards & best wishes for 2007 to Lilian & her supporters,
Michael Ryan, Shrewsbury
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