Council Meeting - 7^th May 2008

The AGM of the Parish Council was attended by a number of HELP supporters as well as other members of the public.

First item for the AGM was to nominate a new Chairman. It is usual for a chairman to serve only 1 year for a Parish Council, however our councillors re-nominated Philip Ross to the position. The chairman of a parish council for a town is allowed to be known as 'Town Mayor'. Contrary to popular misconception, our Town Mayor is not an elected position - it is merely a consequence of being the chairman of the council.

Next it was the Open Forum section of the meeting in which members of the public are permitted to raise questions for the council to answer. There was a very interesting contribution from a representative of the British Legion regarding Cllr Ross' donation of £2,500 of tax payers' money. She objected to the Council forcing this non-voluntary charity contribution, stating that it had reduced overall donation to the charity as members of the public had reduced their personal voluntary donations as a consequence. (It is also of note that charity donation via Council Tax is the least efficient way of giving because the Gift-Aid is lost [20%] and higher rate tax payers cannot declare the donation on their Self Assessment [another 20%], which means up to 40% of the contribution is lost.)

There followed a series of questions posed by Help supporters. None of these questions received any sensible answer. Here is a summary:

• In the light of the recent official Parish Poll and the council having been elected by only 7.5% of residents, would the council act upon its democratic principles and re-open all 24 seats to re-election? Cllr Ross stated (on behalf of the council) that the public had elected the councillors for a 4 year term and they would be seeing it out fully. Only Cllr Webb stated his agreement with the resignation proposal, but he was then derided by Cllr A Smale. (It is a pity that the Council is so emphatic about democracy, yet it won't apply the principle to itself!)
  
  
• What would be the final cost of the Mayoral Chain and Crest - would it fill their agreed £11,000 budget? This question was in light of the council threatening legal action against Help at the previous meeting, over the printing of the £11,000 figure in our leaflet. This time none of the councillors actually denied the £11,000 figure, despite no clear answer being offered. (The status so far is: £2216 has been spent on the golden chain and its box; £5000 has been spent commissioning a heraldic coat of arms; an undisclosed amount will be spent on designing a badge from the coat of arms; and a further undisclosed amount will be spent adding the badge to the golden chain.)
  
  
• Would Cllr Ross admit that he made false statement on BBC Three Counties Radio when he had insisted that the Heritage Foundation only make £300,000 of annual charitable donation in the light of knowing the true figure to be £3.094 million? Cllr Ross refused to admit that he made an error and tried to claim that he had been referring to only the sports and recreation contributions. It was then pointed out to him that on the radio he had been very clear about it being the entire charitable contribution. No apology was forthcoming. (This issue needs resolving, as it is not acceptable for the council chairman to deliberately mislead the public. If you are interested, you can listen to the radio broadcast here.)
  
  

Later in the meeting Cllr Ross gave a very lengthy speech about his opinion of the achievements of the Town Council over the preceding year. During this there was an impassioned outburst from an NHDC councillor who strongly objected to Cllr Ross claiming glory for the achievements of the Grange Improvement Group, and he vocally stated several times that Cllr Ross was telling lies. The ensuing vehement backlash from some of the Town Councillors resulted in the majority of the public walking out of the meeting in protest at their behaviour.

When the meeting resumed the parish councillors mounted their high horses (metaphorically) and agreed to send formal letters of complaint to the NHDC (and other bodies) requesting disciplinary action against the individual. Cllr A Smale requested that the Police be called in, but then had to be reminded that the individual had made no criminal offense. (Again, the meeting had deteriorated into pantomime! It is saddening to see grown people acting in this childish and vindictive manner.)

Cllr Ross went on to make several obscure digs at what he calls the "Old boy's (sic) network" (A phrase which appeared on his pre-Poll propaganda last month). When asked to clarify what he meant by this strange term, Cllr Ross would only say "If the cap fits wear it", and could not be drawn to elucidate further. (Again, we see behaviour more befitting of the schoolyard than a position of civic responsibility!)

One final point of interest from the meeting was that the councillors voted to approve a further £14,000 spending on their 'Double Planning' questionnaire. This money appears to be going to the advertising agency, Action Point Marketing, to follow up the already flawed results. Cllr Webb requested that the factual inaccuracies in the present results be fixed before pursuing the next stage, but unfortunately the rest of the councillors were unconcerned with the truth.

It has been noticed that only one of the 24 councillors appears to demonstrate a consistent grip on reality and decent civic responsibility - that being Cllr Webb. It was of significance that during this meeting, Cllr R Smale accused Cllr Webb of acting and speaking on behalf of HELP. Although HELP members could take this as a compliment, we can categorically state that Cllr Webb is not a member of HELP and neither has he entered into any negotiations with us.