AFTER all the reporting of the unhappy events at Yorkley Court Farm it is important to keep some perspective and also to ask a number of questions.

The Yorkley Court Community Farm group has been working very hard in conjunction with the very same district council planning authority which was apparently meeting in secret with the police and others, even though I and a Yorkley colleague could be first points of contact.

For the district council to advise and allow this eviction attempt to go ahead without a court order was a derogation of duty. These type of tactics by armed police with private security hirelings on innocent people, is exactly the reason why so many are becoming radicalised. Will  the Church of England do anything about it?

As a first point of contact I was again bypassed in the same underhanded way as at the Wilderness two years ago.

Who are the people behind these decisions? Letters will go to the Chief Constable and Crime Commissioner to investigate the police motives.

Concerning the district council, was their decision to advise taken by an officer or district councillor? The question now remains, what chance has the Yorkley Court Community Farm Group of a fair hearing, when the council enforcement department has been seen to act so prejudicially, while at the same time the group has been meeting the planning department in good faith?

Other questions which arise and need urgent answers for the people of Gloucestershire are these:

Were the police and the local council aware that there was already underway a due process of law?

If not, why not? The Land Registry wrote to a member of the Yorkley Court Community Farm Land Trust early in December 2013 advising the trust that the Richard M. Tolson Land Registration of parts of Yorkley Court Farm would be investigated if the trust wanted to ask for a tribunal. The trust did ask for a tribunal and it is underway.

This information was freely available had any of the bodies involved sought to gain first hand accurate information before engaging in uncivilised behaviour.

Why were they acting without a court order?

Why did the police withdraw so early in the day and ignore the requests of local residents until about five pm on Monday, June 23.

Given these facts on the ground, is there any other interpretation than that both the local police and the local council were acting as the private army of a local businessman?

– Cllr Andrew Gardiner, Ruardean/Andrew Darke, Friends of Yorkley Court Community Farm.