Where is the Money Cllr Alan Ewart-James?

Some casual research earlier this year in to the activities of Oportunitas
Limited (OL) led to the profile of one Alan Ewart-James, Hythe Town Councillor and Shepway District Council Councillor(below): he the resigned OL director, he was also an officer of East Kent Housing and Hythe Against Crime (HAC).

That research led to an article on this site about HAC.  That article
revealed how HAC had started a lucrative scheme renting radio equipment to Hythe traders and how the cash paid to the company – some £32,000, was sitting dormant in an account somewhere.

Last Thursday, there was a robbery at a jewellers on the High Street. BBC South East broadcast astounding footage which showed the a 74 year old criminal, in broad daylight, smashing the window of the shop and making off with thousands of pounds’ worth of jewellery. This footage was collected from the shop’s own CCTV cameras.

Hythe Town Council (HTC) operates a network of cameras around the town that are monitored 24/7 at a CCTV centre that at Ashford Borough Council – for which they pay ABC a monitoring fee. We understand that there are members of HTC that will call at an upcoming debate for the system to be switched off due to the apparently high cost of operating it.

Aside from HTC’s own CCTV challenges, there remains the very separate question of what will happen to the HAC money. We hope that the directors, Reg Belcourt and Alan Ewart-James, will ensure that the funding is distributed with the full support of Hythe traders because after all, it’s their money.

Shepwayvox