Newham mayor Sir Robin Wales: Havering deserves ‘better quality’ councillor than Cllr Jeff Tucker
Sir Robin Wales, the Mayor of Newham, hit back against Cllr Tucker's "offensive" comments - Credit: Archant
Havering needs a “better quality” of councillor than Cllr Jeff Tucker, according to The Mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales.
He also branded the leader of Havering’s Independent Residents’ Group’s criticism of Newham as “offensive”.
Cllr Tucker is flooding the borough in 100,000 leaflets giving incorrect figures on the “wrong” savings from the merger between Havering and Newham.
In a letter to the Recorder, Sir Robin said: “His attempts to run down Newham have been offensive.
“If only he could hold himself back from insults. The residents of Havering deserve a better quality of councillor than him.
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“Cllr Tucker had to be restrained at council meetings after he lost both the arguments and his temper.”
In November last year, Cllr Tucker (Rainham and Wennington) was restrained at a Havering Town Hall meeting after he refused to apologise for commenting that black and white council officers could not work together.
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Speaking to the Recorder, Cllr Tucker criticised Newham’s homelessness problems.
He said: “They [Newham] don’t rent rooms, they rent mattresses.”
Sir Wales denied this and said that Newham has formed a new company to supply 3,500 homes for residents.
Cllr Tucker also claims that there will be a full merger between the councils if he does not stop it now.
Sir Wales said: “We should explore more ways to work together and save money but a political merger of the two is not in anyone’s interest.”
But Cllr Tucker persists that it will happen and he now claims that home owners are in for a shock due to Newham’s being “poorly run”.
He said: “It will cost all property owners 20 per cent of their property prices when there’s a merger between the councils.”
He added that if Havering merges with Brentwood and Thurrock instead, property prices would boom by 20pc.
Sir Robin said that it is “simply insane” to suggest that something that is not going to happen will impact on house prices.
