A Coulsdon car lobbyist who has been expelled from membership of both the local Conservatives and from UKIP, for breaking the rules and being repeatedly disruptive, is making a takeover bid at a residents’ association.
Peter Morgan: even UKIP expelled him
Peter Morgan has put in a series of rule change proposals and been nominated to stand as chairman at the annual meeting of ECRA, the East Coulsdon Residents’ Association, which is being staged tomorrow night.
Morgan has told his band of faithful supporters that he intends to disrupt the meeting agenda to prevent a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor from giving a prepared talk about her experiences.
ECRA’s current committee is opposing Morgan’s candidacy and rule changes, and is appealing for residents from East Coulsdon and Cane Hill to attend the meeting to support their chair, Charles King, and other officers.
The ECRA committee has circulated members to affirm its “complete confidence” in Charles King, the association’s chair.
“We believe the East Coulsdon RA’s committee is one of the most active, inclusive and successful RAs in Croydon. Please come along to give your views and vote and see what we have achieved over the last few years,” the association secretary, Maureen Levy, said in an email to residents sent over the weekend.
Levy estimates that she and King each spent at least 800 hours of voluntary service on behalf of ECRA in the past 12 months.
“Despite this there is a motion of censure against our chair, Charles King, and also proposals for 10 rule changes. Both of these have been raised by Peter Morgan who is also standing against the chair.
“The committee would like to say that they have total confidence in the existing Chair Charles King.
“The committee are also of the opinion that the existing rules are fit for purpose, and the proposed changes are aimed solely at removing our existing chair. We are asking you to come along to the AGM to hear a very moving and personal story and to support your committee to enable us to continue to work for you and Coulsdon.”
Morgan is notorious in local politics for his obsessive – and often dubious – methods campaigning for the car lobby. Morgan had to be warned off for vexatious complaints when he ran a one-man campaign to block the building of the Tramlink network.
Last year, Morgan stubbornly went ahead with a Brexit debate just days after the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by a far-right extremist, despite other campaigning being suspended.
In 2015, Morgan and Janet Stollery, then both members of UKIP, cost local Council Tax-payers an estimated £20,000 for calling for a ward by-election following the death of a councillor, without having respect for the bereaved of waiting until after the funeral. UKIP party officials even described Morgan’s conduct as “crass”. Stollery has since become the chair of another residents’ association, in Old Coulsdon.
In the past few days, Morgan has been bombarding many on his email circulation list with accusations that ECRA is “biased” and “undemocratic”, and threatening that “at the start of the AGM, I shall have to query the agenda itself”.
It is believed that this is because Morgan does not want the business of the annual meeting to be preceded by a talk by a Holocaust survivor. Levy has explained to ECRA members, “We have an excellent speaker, Eve Gill, who will relate how she escaped from the Holocaust. We will be putting Eve at the beginning of the Agenda because she is 91 years of age and it is not fair for her to sit through the rest of the items.”
The ECRA annual meeting is tomorrow, Wednesday June 14, from 7.30pm at the Old Coulsdon Congregational Church, Coulsdon Road. All are welcome to attend, though only East Coulsdon and Cane Hill estate residents will be allowed to vote.
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