Godley Green: Complaints over Tameside leader's 'ram it down' comment

Tameside Council leader Brenda Warrington told a meeting that more houses needed to built in the borough

A council leader's comments about plans to build 2,150 homes on green belt land have attracted dozens of complaints.

Tameside Council wants to create Godley Green garden village in Hyde but there have been 3,400 objections.

Labour's Brenda Warrington, who was criticised over the plan and nicknamed "bulldozer", told her opponents she would "ram it down" their throats.

Despite 29 complaints, the council said she had not breached the code of conduct and had no case to answer.

In response to a Freedom of Information request from the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Tameside Council confirmed it had received the complaints following the outburst at a full council meeting in February.

'Freedom of expression'

Tameside's legal chief Sandra Stewart said the comments had fallen within "legitimate freedom of expression and need to be heard and understood in the context of the whole meeting".

A standards inquiry will not be carried out, the council said.

Ms Warrington had been responding to being nicknamed "bulldozer" by some opposition councillors.

She told the meeting the council "want to grow Tameside", adding: "Godley Green, I make no mistake, I will be on that first bulldozer and that is a promise.

"I will be on that bulldozer that actually starts to dig up ready-to-build houses on Godley Green and believe me it will be rammed down your throat."

Following the meeting, Ms Warrington issued a statement in which she said: "After four years of personal abuse and harassment on this matter, I aimed my comments at those councillors who have been personally abusive, disrespectful and disingenuous in this debate."

The village was first drafted under the scrapped Greater Manchester Spatial Framework project.

The plans are due before a planning committee later in the year and, if approved, will then be put before the secretary of state.

Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to [e-mail]