The lawyer's letter was a rather heavy-handed response to a comment posted on M&B which related to Purchase's business interests and which was, factually, inaccurate. The inaccuracy (repeated on three credit check sites) was confirmed and a correction was published but that, quite clearly, wasn't good enough, so the lawyers got a call. Unfortunately for the lawyers, Merrigan got into the act first and did a lot more harm than good, as you can see from my reply:
Of course, you can imagine that the lawyers failed to explain the relationship between Purchase, Merrigan and 'Canvin' but the impact of the visit from 'Raging Bull' and then the lawyer's letter caused me to do some digging. Who was this mysterious 'Canvin' and what was their relationship to Purchase and Merrigan? Well, the Land Registry at Weymouth held the answers. The document below shows that Purchase purchased a piece of land at Badgers Cross:
Later, Purchase carved a chunk out of their original purchase and sold the larger part on to none other than our very own Anthony Henry Canvin:
This purchase by Canvin from Purchase of part of Purchase's previous purchase formed the basis of Anthony Henry's ill-fated Badger's Cross Household Waste Recycling Centre project and is quite informative with regard to the forward planing that went into that project. These documents also clearly confirm the relationship between Purchase and 'Canvin' that the lawyers failed to clarify. And then, of course there is the little matter of whether or not ex-Local and current District Councillor A H Canvin registered this land interest in the Register of Member's Interests at SSDC. You won't be surprised to learn that the answer was 'No'. Had he done so, the residents at Badger's Cross might have been given some prior warning of what was afoot but it would seem that District Councillors don't feel obliged to inform their electorate when they initiate a 'conflict of interests'. After all, who cares about the voters?
Till next time, I'm Niall Connolly