Do you want to hear a joke? Martin Goss' letter to the Gazette.

Perhaps he should spend more time engaging with this popular cross-party movement rather than trying to brand them as 'loony leftists'.

What has been said by Mr Goss is clearly an attempt to divide and to smear the popular community organisation.

He should note that opposition to Alumno's plans is not just a preserve of the left; People from all over the political spectrum are showing their opposition to these plans.

One claim that was made by Mr Goss is that we are subscribing to the economics of "magic money trees".

Far from it, we are actually starting the process of organising community research into viable alternatives to the current plan.

I personally have been in touch with a representative from the New Economics Foundation who is supporting this project and providing very useful information about how we can achieve a community-led project similar to other projects in Britain.

So let's get down to the points made in the article.

It is said that housing has always been planned since 2007 yet you can ask people in the community and they'll tell you that they feel like the whole project has been run by the council with hardly any involvement from the residents and communities in Colchester.

People are only just wising up to this plan which is telling because it signals a lack of publicity beforehand. We have now heard that the council met with the developers 21 times in the last year. this has been kept totally quiet and we had to ask for a freedom of information request to get this information.

Mr Goss goes on to mention the performing arts space which will be available for rent as well as space for businesses and initiatives.

I'm sure it was promised that when Curzon opened it would attract businesses and create jobs, yet there are still empty retail units. A market and cultural space would equally be a good option to bring in more shoppers.

The art space will be available for rent, so not actually accessible to the whole public, accessible at a price. Doesn't sound very cultural to me. We have always championed the idea of having free space for culture tot thrive.

It doesn't cost anything to let the community decorate our community spaces with art and murals and projects. As we've maintained, art spaces for rent are nice but culture doesn't come from above, it comes from below.

You don't just inject a couple of million pounds into a site and say "there's your culture", you do it by fostering the local community and working with them to build something special.

Alumni mentioned that they're working with those who originally set up the Waiting Room, but I know for definite that one of the co-founders of the Waiting Room are actually in support of this community opposition and I have talked with him on this issue. It doesn't look very good for Alumno if the people they talked to are rejecting the plans.

Regarding the universities we actually have had communications with them and the University of Essex already said that they wouldn't personal want student housing that far away from the university, and the Institute said that they're happy to accept student housing they actually don't think they have a need for it.

As I said, this has come from communications with the university and is not baseless evidence.

If the plan is thrown out it will not have to lay barren for another decade. That is scaremongering. If the community are allowed to use the land then it will be regenerated, much like what happened with the Waiting Room.

And if Alumno are indeed providers of social housing, perhaps we could ask them to build social housing instead of student flats?

Clearly Mr Goss is fixated too much on the "loony left" to try and distract us from the fact that the council is facing a large opposition from all across the board.

The community certainly aren't going to tolerate being spoken down to as such. I, for one, will carry the badge of "loony" with pride if it is considered "loony" to believe in giving the community a voice on these matters.

Victoria Weaver
Labour activist and proud loony
Ipswich Road