PARISH COUNCIL MEETING 03/03/2014.

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PARISH COUNCIL MEETING 03/03/2014.

Posted by Kenneth Lyons.

I attended the Council Meeting tonight (03/03/2014), it confirmed and reinforced the reason why I haven’t been to one of these meetings for a while. I get totally frustrated with how they work and what they talk about, which I have to say is nothing or at least its anything as long as it isn’t relevant to the issue being considered.

Tonight as I understand it, was to consider the “soundness and legality” of East Riding’s “Proposed Submissions Documents”. I had the very distinct impression that not a single councillor had taken the time or trouble to read any document on the protocol for reaching this point in a legal and sound manner.

We had talk of Preston not being a ‘Village’ or ‘Primary Village” its a ‘Hamlet”, people who lived in some houses or other that had now become flats, big red fire engines that are bigger than the ones we currently have, traffic blockages, a bypass and that would be down to a builder to build, where the by-pass would be and how it wouldn’t improve the traffic in Preston, drains in Bilton and how many houses could be connected to it, how in 1999 East Riding said they wouldn’t build in Preston until the traffic problems had been adequately addressed and a host of other subjects that were totally irrelevant to the purpose of the Council Meeting, all this took up at least 95% of this section of the meeting, yes I was watching the time.

We had a resident who has spent a lot of time and hard work collecting signatures for a petition to East Riding on the traffic issues in Preston, who was told by a Ward Councillor that she was wasting her time and it would make absolutely no difference at all, terrific, who’s side are the council on?

At the end of this section of the meeting and before the Council went on to consider Planning Applications the Council Chairman gave a little speech about how the Council never seemed to get any residents at Council Meetings. The Chairman said, “maybe the Council isn’t relevant to the lives of residents and that the Council didn’t know if that was the Council’s fault”. The Chairman went on to say the Council was having its meeting next Monday in the café in the Co-op Supermarket, every body had a good laugh, including Council members, at that point I could take no more…I had to leave!

I worked for an International Broker and I can only go by the meetings I attended and in many cases arranged and Chaired with an agenda of items. Every attendee had to be up to speed on the subject earmarked for discussion. My time was accounted for during every day in the coming year and what I never had time for, was some one going off at a tangent and getting off track. There had to be a conclusion drawn, a plan for moving that subject forward and responsibilities assigned, that was the end of the meeting.

Maybe I’ve got the wrong end of the stick and Council meetings operate in a very different way to what I’m used to but I have to say, I have great difficulty in coming to terms with wasting my time at meetings that appear to cover very little, go nowhere and avoid the subject in question. I have only ever been to Preston Parish Council meetings in a public forum and they are very different from business meetings I am more accustomed to, so if I am being overly harsh I can only apologise, I can only put it down to my lack of experience.

The Ward Councillor who attended explained that the current process has been going for the last 8 years. I know that the council has received all the documents relating to that process over that time but cannot prove that many of them were never even opened, I know that from a Council source.

Should the Council have shown a little leadership and drawn those documents and plans to the attention of residents some years ago? Wouldn’t this be a very good subject for Parish Meetings to consider the implications and gather the views and opinions of residents?

Obviously none of the above, it seems to have been the domain of 13 Councillors to let this slip through because the decision seems to have been theirs alone, is the Council relevant to residents lives, I’ll leave you to figure that one out.

Allow me to give the Council a clue, the Council is there to manage the Parish and its affairs and representing the views of residents. In 2010 more than 500 residents sent letters to East Riding objecting to a housing development of 20 dwellings, last year almost 600 residents objected to housing developments in the village, currently there are about 700 residents who have signed a petition objecting to the current Submissions Document. I make that in the order of 1800 residents, not withstanding duplications that are against development due to traffic issues in Preston. Those figures are pretty well exclusive to Preston North, does the Council happen to know how many residents live in Preston North?

The current Council has been sitting for the last 3 years and certainly since that first development in 2010, the Council can argue this blunder was down to the previous administration, which I would agree with, but can the Council explain to residents why it has not in the last 3 years taken up this cause on behalf of residents instead of leaving it till 7 days before the whole process reaches its conclusion?

If the Council want to know if it’s relevant to the lives of residents and why no residents (to speak of) attend Council Meetings I suggest the answer is no, thats why nobody attends Council Meetings!

I have been asked by a number of residents if I will submit a note of interest in the current vacancy on the Council. I told them I would consider it, after tonight I’ve considered it and my answer is “if you pee into the wind you normally get wet”, I prefer to stay dry thank you!

We intend to publish a post on housing allocations in the near future, you might find it interesting.

If there are any residents with similar experience of the council do please contact us by comment or email. If you wish we will post on your experience without your identity being released, or not post anything if you simply want to share your experience it’s entirely up to you. We would love to hear your story, your not alone, there are a number of us, let us compare notes and grow as a group.