The HART campaign group held its first full-scale open meeting on Thursday 8th August 2019 @ 7.30pm at The Centre, Tollesbury. To kickstart our fundraising to fight inappropriate housing development in the village, we provided refreshments in exchange for cash donations. We raised over £450, thank you Tollesbury!
Another big thank you to all those that contributed by donating cakes and biscuits and of course their time.
We have placed donation boxes at various points around the village, if you would like our bank details so that you can make the donation directly then please contact us by email or message via FaceBook.
If you have any ideas for fundraising or would like to help please email fundraising@hartollesbury.com.
In order for HART to fight Planning Applications and subsequent appeals we may need to have our arguments represented before HM Government’s Planning Inspectorate, and this may mean hiring a specialist planning lawyer to act on our behalf.
The good news is that all land promoters and developers can be defeated by a well-organised and well-presented case being made to the Planning Inspectorate, and they often have been, for example in our own neighbourhood by local residents’ campaign groups in Maldon, Clavering, Danbury, Steeple Bumpstead and Thaxted just in the last few years.
The bad news is that protecting our village will come at some considerable cost! We know from our friends in Clavering, Danbury and Thaxted that fighting an appeal will cost tens of thousands of pounds, and that they were able to raise the majority of this through crowd funding and pledges from residents.
We sincerely hope that we will be able to convince Maldon District Council to reject the applications. However we know from other villages’ experience that if rejected, they are likely to take them to appeal.
Tollesbury at dawn
Some residents have already made pledges to donate, for which we are extremely grateful. We will now have to consider fundraising events, and other means of generating funds and we hope you will be able to assist with ideas and help.
We need funds and we need your help. Please consider a pledge or a donation, however small. You can download a pledge form fill it in and then email back, no need to print.
We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has contributed, whether through donations or pledges; attending or running an event; having a collection tin on your shop counter – or to those who manage the village’s venues, for hosting us so obligingly. It’s been a real team effort, and we thank you most sincerely.
At the moment we’re not running a JustGiving campaign. Of course if you would still like to donate, that would be very welcome: please email us at fundraising@hartollesbury.com and we’ll make the arrangements.
Remember, when we decide it’s time to wind up HART, our constitution requires that we hold a vote at an Extraordinary General Meeting, and that any remaining funds are disbursed to the benefit of Tollesbury, so your money will always support our village.