OPENNESS AND TRANSPARENCY.

We would like to remind readers, this blog is not run by any one person, it has a number of residents as members and we work as a team, no single member has full control on what appears. If you wish to comment on anything on this blog you should either comment through the normal channel or email us direct, If you would like to join our group please email us, thank you.

OPENNESS AND TRANSPARENCY.

Over the last 15 to 20 years Preston Parish Council has never been known for its openness, transparency or its engagement with residents but in mid 2013 the Council expressed the aim of becoming more open, transparent and engaged with residents of the Parish. Since that was announced there would appear to be very little evidence of any progress being made in achieving those aims.

Those aims were expressed following a request by a resident to have a Parish Meeting where residents would have been instrumental in producing an agenda for the meeting and all residents who are on the Electoral Register of the Parish would be entitled to vote and have their views and opinions recorded. Our understanding is that the Council was not helpful in assisting residents to hold a Parish Meeting and it has never been mentioned since.

The only visible evidence that the Council is trying to achieve its aims is the possible holding of the Parish Council Meeting being held in Preston South on 10/03/14. This we find is disappointing, there are fundamental issues, which we feel, should be addressed as part of the process, one of those issues we cover here.

Preston Parish Council Website, this is possibly a first point of contact for many residents who wish to locate information or possibly have access to their elected Parish Councillors.

PARISH COUNCIL WEBSITE,

This by definition is there to give as much information as possible to residents and people who would like to find out more about the Council and Parish, not only on the historical nature of the Parish but also on Council business, lets look at the contents of the website,

Home Page.

On the Home Page there is a short narrative mainly covering the boundaries of Preston and the population level in the village. There is a short acknowledgement to George Stephenson author of “Welcome to Preston in Holderness”.

There is a picture of a row of houses we believe on Weghill Road leading out of the village. That introduction we feel is uninspired, lacking in substance and gives very little if any real information of interest to anyone reading it for the first time. This uninspiring narrative we feel would immediately fail to grab anyone’s attention and would in fact put readers off from looking further into the village or  its website.

We in Preston are blessed with a Grade 1 listed church nestling in the center of a conservation area with views looking outward that many people would love to have on their doorstep. Preston has a history second to none but the Council seems to make no capital of it what so ever. We’re sure there are many historical pictures that would show how interesting  Preston is and would make the site compelling reading for visitors.

Someone has graciously put the website together with the bare minimum of information as a format and template for others who are more knowledgeable on local issues and history to expand upon and make it interesting and compelling, why has no one taken the time or interest to make the site more informative and welcoming? If, as appears to be the case the Council have no interest in doing that, enlist the help of residents and lets start a project to have the website ungraded and welcoming to visitors, they may just look a little further if we do. A small group of residents we’re sure would be better placed in improving the site and keeping it up to date with relevant information.

If we want proof of the effectiveness of residents and what they can achieve we need look no further than the Community hall.

Parish Information.

A very boring narrative with 2 interesting pictures of the Church and allotments buried deep within its bowels. The 2 pictures we consider to be better suited to the ‘Home Page’ or at least to be considered as such. About half of the sub listings under Parish Information have no information at all, they are simply boring, ‘fun less’ and uninformative. There isn’t even any information on bus routes or timings and none on taxis, but they are listed as items, why?

Parish Council Information.

This fares worse than the previous section. There is a list of Councillors who are elected to represent residents and to be on hand should residents need to contact them especially in any kind of emergency.

As we understand it, a councillor’s main task is to engage and get to know the views of residents so that they are able to represent those views in council, holding a Councillor surgery each month is a good idea and we know some residents suggested this in 2011 prior to the local elections, but the current arrangements need much more thought and publicity.

There are no contact details for any Councillors except through the Parish Clerk who we understand works about 12.5 hours a week, so for the vast majority of time Councillors are not available and are not contactable through the site should any resident need to contact a Councillor in an emergency. Why would people put themselves forward for election in order to represent residents and then withhold their contact details?

Added to that the list of Councillors is hopelessly out of date (02/03/14) as it still lists Councillor Harrison who resigned some months ago and it does not list Councillor Obernay who was co-opted onto the Council some months ago. Again if the Council have no interest in updating the site, which it clearly does not, would it not be a good idea to recruit residents who have the time and interest to do the job for them.

There is a Register of Councillor Interests, which is equally out of date as the list of Councillors, this particular item along with the list of Councillors, was only added after those interests were posted on this site, again the Council should be leading residents and not following them.

Policies and Procedures, as with most of the other sub headings of this section, is blank. This is a very important section of the site as it is supposed to inform residents or any one visiting the site, how the Council operates and the standards to which it operates. We are aware the Council adopted Policies and procedures developed by NALC and more recently have agreed to adopt an internal grievance procedure.

It comes across to the reader of the site that the Council really does not want residents to know how Council business is supposed to be conducted and therefore residents do not have any information that would enable them to hold the Council accountable.

As with most other sub sections under PC Information there is a calendar of local events, it is completely blank, it would appear there are no activities or events in Preston at all, that is very misleading there are many events that have happened and are to happen that are well deserving of a mention.

Council Meetings and Agenda’s. It seems to be the same old story, sometimes they’re listed and sometimes they’re not, it depends whether the Council can be bothered! The same applies to Council Minutes although following a recent observation to the Council by email from a resident these have now been brought up to date, this should be done without the need for a resident to prompt the Council into updating them.

Local Business.

There are 2 businesses listed, Cranswick Foods and Songbirds Nursery with links to the company websites. The sites that the links take you to are good but how many people would have lost interest long before they get here?

Surely the local shop and Post Office deserve a mention, its essential to Preston North and is a great service to the village, why is this not mentioned?

Community Groups.

Of the three sub sections Clubs, Organisations and Societies there is only ‘Preston Walkers’ Listed, again a narrative that is uninspiring. We are sure this could include pictures and explanations by the walkers group to inspire local people to join them, and in doing so meet new people, keep fit and get to see some of the local sights. If there are no listings under these headings would it not be better to have them replaced with subjects that can be expanded upon and that are of interest to people?

Image Gallery.

Even this is totally blank, surely there are lots of interesting images that could be posted here, we could come up with quite a number.

The site gives a reader the distinct impression that some one has simply thrown on information without any thought or interest because they have to. What has been thrown on is the absolute bare minimum and the information is just piled up any old how to get the job out of the way, just looking through this site is depressing!

Our conclusion is that the Council had the site produced by ERYC as a response to the requests and comments of residents, and then listed the bare minimum of information very reluctantly, showing no ongoing interest in a vehicle that could give residents a very great deal of relevant information.

At present the website is boring, uninspiring, incomplete, and does not achieve the aims that are inherently associated with a website. The design of the site is probably the most basic and worst attempt at ‘Corporate Identity’ we can think of, there is not a single thing about the site that says ‘read me’ or ‘visit Preston’. 

It comes across to residents that the Council appears to actively deny information to residents and do not want to engage with them. If the Council is sincere in reconnecting with residents, becoming more open and transparent it could do much worse than making the website a first project and inviting residents to get involved. At the very least it would be visible!

Maybe the end result would be a complete revamp of the site or start again from fresh and rebuilt it?

Can we suggest the Council take steps to find out?

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.

PARISH COUNCIL MEETING 03/03/2014.

We would just like to remind readers, this blog is not run by any one person, it has a number of residents as members and we work as a team, no single member has full control on what appears. If you wish to comment on anything on this blog you should either comment through the normal channel or email us direct, If you would like to join our group please email us, thank you.

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.

UNLAWFUL COUNCIL MEETINGS. POST2.

We would just like to remind readers, this blog is not run by any one person, it has a number of residents as members and we work as a team, no single member has full control on what appears. If you wish to comment on anything on this blog you should either comment through the normal channel or email us direct, If you would like to join our group please email us, thank you.

UNLAWFUL COUNCIL MEETINGS POST 2.

POSTED  BY KENNETH LYONS.

THE POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES TO THE PARISH AND RESIDENTS.

Some might say ”so what its no big deal”, it has the potential to become a big deal if that meeting faces a legal challenge at any point, for the following reasons,

1.   The council convened an illegal Council Meeting and therefore had no legal authority to conduct any council business.

2.  During that illegal meeting the Council co-opted a new member and because that member was co-opted during a Council meeting that had no legal authority to conduct Council business, that member is not a lawfully co-opted Parish Councillor and is therefore still simply a member of the public.

3.  For approximately 17 months and probably as many Council meetings the council have had a member of the public sitting on the Council taking part in Council deliberations and taking part in voting to approve or reject items of Council business.

4.  By definition every council meeting that member of the public has attended and taken part in is also illegal because under legislation and the Council’s Standing Orders, a member of the public is not permitted to take part in Council business and deliberations because ‘standing orders are in force’ and is certainly not allowed to vote on Council business. Members of the public have a vote at Parish Meetings not Council Meetings

5.  Every month an item of council business is the approval of Minutes relating to the previous meeting, which in my opinion, potentially generates it’s own legal problems because the previous meeting with a member of the public sitting on the Council was in itself unlawful. That will continue to be the case until the fault is corrected.

6. When Council minutes are approved and entered into the ‘Minutes Book’ those minutes, in law are sacrosanct, they cannot be rescinded or amended. Every Councillor has approved those minutes as an accurate and honest account of the previous meeting. The problem with that is, the minutes are not an honest or accurate account of the previous meeting because they do not identify that a member of the public took part in the meeting contrary to legal provisions.

My understanding is those minutes cannot be altered or rescinded without the formal approval of the High Court, the potential financial risk to the public purse of Preston must be huge. This would make the cost of an audit by the Audit Commission pall into insignificance.

There are many other potential consequences of convening illegal Council meetings, which we do not intend to cover here, suffice it to say they are many and during such meetings individual Councillors are legally responsible for their actions and decisions during those meetings, they are not recognised as acting in their capacity as Parish Councillors because the meeting was not legally convened and they are therefore simply members of the public, who do not have any legal authority to commit to binding Council decisions!

Councillors may cry that they didn’t know, but they are required to know, that’s why they are there, to manage the affairs of the Parish. The fact that they haven’t bothered to find out what should happen isn’t a defence.

I wrote to the Parish Council following the October 2012 Council Meeting and in time for the November Council Meeting, informing the Council of the error. At that point the Council was in a position to correct the error without it ever being entered into the Minutes Book. The council could have listed the co-option process for November and co-opted the new councillor legally. There has never been any acknowledgement or response to that letter and as far as I am aware the error has never been corrected.

It is possible the Council may get away without the meeting without being challenged, if that turns out to be the case they will have been very fortunate. On the other hand if the Council continue to disregard its legal obligations it will at some point have to answer for its actions and that puts the public purse of Preston at unnecessary risk.

Its time for the Council to carry out a full ‘Internal Procedural Audit’, identify the points of failure and correct them, when they have been corrected the Council should install a monitoring system to ensure continued future compliance with its legal duties and procedural obligations. It is after all the Council that has responsibility to ensure the legislation is observed and therefore any failing is down to the Parish Council and individual Councillors. For far too many years we have had a Council that ignores the laws it is supposed to observe and in doing so has managed to waste more than £20,000 of public funds belonging to the residents of Preston.

Any ‘Corporate Body’ is required to operate with the requirements of the laws, which are appropriate to it, and, it’s their responsibility to ensure the organisation complies with the requirements placed upon it. In this respect a Parish Council is no different to any other ‘Corporate Body’.

It’s worth noting that since the issue was brought to the Council’s attention in October 2012, it has since that date posted all ‘Notice of Meetings’ in accordance to the provisions of the LGA 1972. This shows the Council are aware of its past flaws and have acted in this instance to correct it, if only in part, the consequences of the flaw have not been addressed and are therefore continuing to mount. If the council had been faultless in giving 2 clear days notice and it was legal for them to do so, in my opinion it would still be giving just 2 clear days notice, if only to prove a point.

There is an error in the above paragraph, the Council does not actually comply with the requirements of the LGA 1972 when posting the ‘Notice of Council Meeting’. We will be covering those other failings in a future post but for now we are only dealing with the requirement for 3 clear days notice to be given. Though it must be said the omissions that are currently occurring make the current Council Meetings just as unlawful.

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.

2ND RESPONSE TO KEITH G, HULL.

We would just like to remind readers, this blog is not run by any one person, it has a number of residents as members and we work as a team, no single member has full control on what appears. If you wish to comment on anything on this blog you should either comment through the normal channel or email us direct, If you would like to join our group please email us, thank you.

HELLO AGAIN KEITH AND THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN FOR YOUR COMMENT.

Posted by Kenneth Lyons.

For me to do what I’m doing is really very easy because I’m telling the truth and that’s never a difficult thing to do and, it’s probably why there has been no challenge to what I say, the whole Council of May 2011, know it to be the truth. I would dearly love the Council or any Councillor to write and challenge what I say and enter into a debate.

If what I say is untrue and unfounded, don’t you think there would have been absolute fury from the council? It would have been covered everywhere possible, there would probably have been notices over the whole village, in the Council Notice Board, in the local press, announcements on HU12 Online and the local Facebook groups, it would have been everywhere!

Some Councillors have already implied that I lied to the Monitoring Officer and then they ran and hid behind the barricades of the Parish Council in their Flak Jackets for protection. Smugly citing they are Councillors and therefore unable to comment on such matters….total bloody hogwash!,

None of the Councillors I refer to have ever uttered a single word in public, it has always been behind the protection of the closed doors of the Council. If their statements are honest and truthful let them say so in public and say my statement was untruthful! By doing so it will allow me to defend myself and it will also unlock the full statements held by the Standards Committee at East Riding Council.

I can tell you, the council did discuss the matter ‘In-camera’ on 14^th November 2012 and, from the minutes of that meeting, I quote…

“………The Council was also made aware that letters from three Councillors had been sent to the Monitoring Officer at East Riding Council regarding SCAC/181/Bell/Preston. The Chairman advised that although a very serious matter it was not for this council to discuss as it was something that could only be dealt with by the Monitoring Officer”.

I would like to note that the Chairman didn’t say “serious allegation’ she said “serious matter”, the underlying implication in my opinion is that she is aware of the truth relating to the incident bearing in mind her witness statement to the Standards Committee.

Minutes confirm my assertion that 3 Councillors wrote to the Monitoring officer following the Standards Committee deliberation to protest at the flawed outcome. It is also my opinion that the statement is incomplete. It is my understanding that if the monitoring officer was to refer this matter to the Standards Committee and the deliberation went against the Councillors in question it would warrant a very serious sanction indeed. Maybe to the extent that those Councillors, if found guilty, may be found to be unfit to hold public office, if that were the case it is my understanding the matter would have to be referred to the High Court for a final ruling on their possible disqualification from holding public office and an election would then need to be called to fill the resulting vacancies. That would take it out of the hands of the Monitoring Officer.

For a Council to hold a meeting ‘In-camera’ it’s a privately held meeting that excludes any members of the public or press, it is there to be legitimately used to enable the Council to discuss issues in private. There are 3 categories that would justify such a meeting under the Public Bodies (Admission to meetings) Act 1960.

Holding a private meeting to enable the Council to have secret discussions away from the press and public and on matters that are in the public interest so as to allow Councillors to express their points of view secretly and probably to intimidate those Councillors who disagree with them to avoid public criticism or legal challenge is not one of them.

In my opinion the Parish Council has grossly abused the legal provisions, which enable ‘In-camera’ meetings, for the sole purpose of protecting a small number of Councillors.

Just so we understand and there is no confusion, something that affects the Parish Council and the residents who it represents, the Council have no legal right to discuss? Doesn’t make a great deal of sense does it?

Could it possibly be that the Parish Council doesn’t want to discuss the issue in public because that would not be in the interests of certain members of the Council.

According to the published Minutes, the Council were given “various options” by their external advisors ERNLLCA, the Council collectively chose to take the option that meant the Council didn’t have to comment and could therefore keep quiet about the whole incident and blame it on the Monitoring Officer, not entirely democratic!

If as the Council insists, only the Monitoring Officer is in a position to deal with the matter, the Council as a Corporate Body should contact the Monitoring Officer and demand that the issue is thoroughly investigated and resolved in order to prevent further damage to the Councils reputation. If the Monitoring Officer still refuses to investigate the matter the Council is able to appeal to the Local Government Ombudsman that should get a result.

My understanding is that the council has a legal right to discuss the issue in a public forum with participation from members of the public. What I can tell you is that there is certainly no legal provision that prevents the council form discussing this subject in public. In fact I will go so far as to say there is a legal provision that encourages a Local Authority to discuss this very subject in public and with public participation described as ‘Council Debate’ and ‘Public Utterances’ as a defence and rebuttal to allegations a Local Authority considers libellous. This defence is listed in an earlier Defamation Act, which the 2013 Act has not repealed.

A local Authority has no other means of defending itself against libel, for the Parish Council to suggest that has somehow been taken away from them is misleading. If they have received external advice as they claim surely one of the ‘various options’ was a listed defence against Defamation, the only one available to the Council?

I suspect the Parish Council is fully aware of that because it recently attempted to take some form of action against this Blog in order to prevent further posts, they found they are powerless, the only way the Parish Council can close this Blog is by resolving this issue. 

In my opinion it would appear the council is prepared to go to great lengths to keep this issue under wraps while at the same time making every effort to ensure that I do not have the opportunity to defend myself.

Just as a matter of fact, it seems the council gets most if not all of its external advice from ERNLLCA and according to the ERNLLCA Administrations Officer, Cllr. Clappison (who had been Chairman of the Parish Council up to the point of the incident) was elected Chairman of the Holderness District of ERNLLCA on 29^th June 2010. I am certainly not suggesting that would necessarily influence any advice given by ERNLLCA but it does raise an eyebrow or two.

Surely Cllr. Clappison should list that as an interest that should be declared in certain matters, this issue in my opinion being one of them. See how the names just keep on popping up in key places? It would appear we just can’t escape coming across one of those 4 names whichever avenue we take.

In your last point you mention the damage to the council and the need for it to be resolved, I am in total agreement with you. I contacted the Council Chairman privately quite some time ago seeking to find a resolution, I was at that time prepared to accept from the Council an assurance that such behaviour will never be repeated and neither I nor any other resident would be subjected to such behaviour. There has never been any acknowledgement or response to that letter. I remain willing to discuss the matter with the Council Chairman at any time. My willingness to meet the Council Chairman to try and resolve the issue has not changed for almost 3 years.

I do hope this answers you comment Keith, my apologies if in parts I sound passionate.

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.

"IMPOSSIBLE"

We would just like to remind readers, this blog is not run by any one person, it has a number of residents as members and we work as a team, no single member has full control on what appears. If you wish to comment on anything on this blog you should either comment through the normal channel or email us direct, If you would like to join our group please email us, thank you.

IMPOSSIBLE!

We have had an e-mail from a reader suggesting we are wrong to use the word impossible in a post dated 9^th February 2014, and that the incident could have happened the way Group B describes.

The person gave no reason as to why he thinks we’re wrong, he made no attempt to put forward an argument to support his view. If he has an argument to support his theory we do hope he will share it with us, maybe we could debate the issue, we would welcome that, so here’s our view.

This post is our honest opinion, it does not intend to portray any part as fact, that remains the domain of others. Our opinion is given here on an event we believe to be in the Public Interest.

We don’t accept the misuse of the word impossible, and these are our reasons for not accepting it;

1.     If a group of people describe the conditions they observed at a specific point in time and place as being a bright and sunny day with high temperatures ideal for sunbathing on the beach and therefore thoroughly enjoyable, we would under normal circumstances accept that as being accurate and truthful.

However, if we then have a group of people who emphatically state they were there at the same place and same point in time as the first group but they observed the conditions to be a dark night with freezing temperatures and horrendous thunderstorms and the only way to seek relief was to get under cover where it was dry and warm, this throws doubt on both statements.

In our opinion it’s impossible for them both to be correct because they are describing events that cannot have happened at the same point in time and at the same place. There is absolutely no connection or similarity between the 2 accounts, they are effectively 2 separate events, therefore they are mutually exclusive to each other and it’s therefore impossible for them both to have happened at the same point in time and at the same place.

A definition of Mutually Exclusive as taken from ‘Wikipedia’ is,

“Two events are mutually exclusive if they cannot occur at the same time. An example is tossing a coin once, which can result in either heads or tails, but not both”.

In our opinion, because of their ‘Mutually Exclusive’ nature they are also ‘Collectively Exhaustive’  because there is only 2 possible outcomes, they’re either true or they’re false. They can’t each be a little bit right at the same time as both being a little wrong because there are no similarities or connection between them, they are effectively two different events. The same applies to tossing a coin once, you either get ‘heads’ or you get ‘tails’, it isn’t possible to get a little bit of each!

It is therefore impossible for them both to have happened at the same time and in the same place.

2.   In our honest opinion, for Group B statements, to attract any misguided credibility, they were entirely dependent on none of their peers [Parish Councillors] submitting statements that contradicted them.

This would probably have resulted in a member of the public making a complaint about the behaviour of a Councillor and 4 Councillors submitting statements that directly contradicted the circumstances given by the complainant.

With 4 councillors who are deemed to be upstanding and honest members of our community, entrusted to making decisions on behalf of the Parish and who are united in their appraisal with no other dissenting opinion from their peers, they could have discredited the complainant.

Assuming the councillors were aware of the absolute need for no dissenting statements, what could have made them think there would be no dissenting statements? Was something tentatively agreed between the whole of the Parish Council in private? There were certainly a number of ‘In Camera’ [Private] meetings at that time, Council minutes show that to be the case. In our view it must have been discussed between the whole council in private because it would need agreement between the whole council to make the tactic viable.

Unfortunately [or fortunately as the case may be] it didn’t quite turn out as planned, 5 of their peers disagreed with the Councillors with vastly differing accounts of the event, which must inevitably cast a very serious doubt on the validity of the conflicting statements. That is why it must be resolved by a thorough and independent investigation.

3.   If by some psychotic aberration we accept the 4 statements to be an accurate and honest account of the incident, as the e-mailer suggests, we are still left with a big problem.

That problem is, we are then left with 5 statements from Councillors, which because of their exclusivity from the other group of 4 Councillors must by definition be untruthful.

That leaves us with an even greater problem and brings the whole of the Parish Council into question because that would raise the spectre of a conspiracy and vendetta against a member of the public by the Parish Council as well as collusion between councillors who gave statements and Councillors who refused to give statements. That’s a whole different ball game.

Whichever way you look at this it shows our Parish Council to be corrupt and it is essential that an Independent Investigation is carried out to resolve the issue and put some faith and confidence back into the collective public mind.

4.    For any sensible group who wished to mislead such an investigation it would have been, in our opinion, far better to acknowledge the correct details of the incident and put a differing magnitude and intensity on those details to lessen the impact as a tactic of mitigation. Such an approach we believe could be put down to differences in individual recollections and that would introduce a degree of doubt. It would in our opinion have introduced doubt not only to the Standards Committee but could well have put a sprinkling of doubt in the minds of other witnesses.

In our opinion, by inventing a whole new set of events it may well sway the official body to be ‘inconclusive’ but we believe it would also entrench the positions of other witnesses and particularly the complainant.

In short , and in our opinion, it implies the complainant has been dishonest along with 5 other Parish Councillors, brings the Parish Council into disrepute and Local Government is seen to be corrupt, there is no place for this kind of behaviour at any level of Local Government. 

We posted recently on a Council vacancy that has remained unfilled for about 3 months because of a lack of interest from residents. If this is the best level of behaviour the Parish Council is able to muster up, it shows the Parish Council and Local Government in general in an extremely bad light and we are not surprised in any lack of interest shown by residents.

Doing nothing is simply not an option!

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.

WE"RE BACK AGAIN!

We would just like to remind readers, this blog is not run by any one person, it has a number of residents as members and we work as a team, no single member has full control on what appears. If you wish to comment on anything on this blog you should either comment through the normal channel or email us direct, If you would like to join our group please email us, thank you.

Well, we’re obviously back again, we wish all our readers a Happy New Year.

We are almost into the 12 month run-up to the next council elections and we look forward to posting during that period.

Thank you for your comments, unfortunately given the sensitive nature of the most recent posts, we are unable to post your comments for reasons we hope you will understand, it’s due to us not being in a position to confirm your identity.

Thank you to those who have sent e-mails. There has been a number asking if the Parish Council has responded to the posts in September of last year, We can tell you there hasn’t been a peep from them. That is not unexpected because the council apparently don’t respond to ‘anonymous’ comments, but then, they don’t respond when it has a name attached to it so there’s no material difference really.

It has been suggested that the council is portraying this blog as telling ‘untruths’, we can assure all readers, anything that appears here we can either prove because we have it in writing or we have very good reason and supporting information that leads us to firmly believe what we say is the truth.  If the Council believes we are posting information that is untruthful, they always have the option of responding and correcting any errors, they will not do that because they know what we post is the truth.

One of the items the council has suggested we’re being dishonest about is our claim that the council have conducted unlawful council meetings and it has a member of the public masquerading as a councillor [absolutely no fault of the councillor we might add, the situation is entirely down to the sloppy manner in which the Parish Council chooses to operate]. The council apparently also claims our posts on financial discrepancies are untrue along with our assertion that the council have wasted many thousands of pounds of our money, we are responding to those claims by publishing posts that prove the council have in fact conducted unlawful meetings and we shall also be posting to show discrepancies in council figures that have been sent to residents by the council in writing.

The council currently has plans to hold the March Council Meeting at the Co-op Café as part of its strategy to supposedly ‘engage’ with residents we shall also be posting articles that in our view contradict the council’s public aims and show it is not being entirely honest in that respect. Far from trying to engage with residents they appear to go to great lengths to conceal information from residents.

We will not be posting anything that is simply down to our opinion, we will be posting based on ‘facts’ supplied by the Parish Council.

 Hopefully those posts will begin to appear in the next week or so.

There is one positive that the council is now doing, its now posting the Public Notice of Council Meetings with at least 3 to 4 clear days notice, did it have a choice?

It’s a pity it had to act once again under pressure from this Blog instead of it being the Councils normal working practice!

A councillor resigned last November and as reported on HU12 Online, after about 3 months there has been no interest shown by any of our approx 1,900 registered electors of the parish in joining the council to fill that vacancy, does that tell us anything? It certainly appears to show how low the council is held in residents esteem and given that, for all the reasons on this Blog and elsewhere, the Council should take decisive action to redress that position. Holding a Council Meeting in the Co-op Café is a poor excuse for an answer!!

It’s very clear to us that prospective Councillors may be tarnished by the same brush as those less worthy Councillors and we’re sure that will have an understandable influence on residents reluctance to join such an organisation.

We have requested a member of our team to submit a note of interest to join the Council and if nothing else we think it would gee-up the Council to generate a few more notes of interest in the position in order to keep him at bay and that at least might get the vacancy filled.

Does the Council need our help once again?

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.

STANDARDS COMMITTEE/PRESTON PARISH COUNCIL POST 4.

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.

POSTED BY KENNETH LYONS, A RESIDENT OF PRESTON.

POST 4. A CLOSER LOOK AT THE STATEMENTS AND CONCLUSION.

MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE GROUPS.

1.              Group B statements do not mention a single event identified by Group A;

2.               Likewise Group A statements do not mention any event identified by Group B;

3.               There is absolutely no ‘bleeding’ of information or connection between the two groups;

4.              The groups are therefore “Mutually Exclusive” in their contents.

Being mutually exclusive, it is not possible for both accounts to exist and refer to the same event at the same time and therefore both sets of statements are either referring to different events or one group must be non existent [false]. Both groups agree they refer to the same event so, which group gave false statements?

In my opinion it is essential in the public interest that the group of false statements is identified and the truthful witnesses are exonerated. This is needed to maintain credibility in the Parish Council and public confidence in Local Government. It is also needed in order to protect any other resident who may in my opinion be subjected to similar or even more serious behaviour should any resident disagree with members of the Parish Council at some point in the future.

There are a number of professional studies into ‘group witness behaviour’, which I have identified in detailed research when writing this post, carried out by Psychologists, police officers and legal bodies. I have studied a number of reports and their methodologies and I have done my best to apply those principles and methods to all the statements made by Preston Parish Councillors. In brief;

MATHEMATICAL BALANCE,

In the light of the above reports and methodologies, it can be argued that a simple mathematical balance exposes the weaker group;

1.Group A has five statements that between them match a majority of the events contained in the original statement of complaint. Three external witnesses to the incident independently gave statements that fully concur with the five Group A statements.

2.Group B has 4 statements that contain no events that match the original statement of complaint. No supporting statements exist from external sources [members of the public].

Therefore Group A has 8 statements and Group B has 4 statements, applying the ‘group behavioral approach’ as understood by me, the mathematical balance very clearly in my opinion indicates that Group B statements are the much weaker and therefore most likely to be false.

STATEMENT CONTENT AND GROUP BEHAVIOUR,

Statement content and group behaviour can, in accordance with my understanding of the approach, also be a strong indication as to which set of statements is false.

1.Group A statements all recall different aspects of the event using individual terminology and only the combined recollections identify the majority of events outlined in the original statement of complaint. These statements independently support each other without any indication of collaboration.

2.Group B statements appear to all identify the same 3 elements using group terminology that are not identified as part of the original statement of complaint. None of their peers [outside Group B] or external witness statement identifies any of the events listed in Group B. statements, therefore in my opinion these statements can be seen as ‘isolated’.

3.Group B statements must in my view be split into two sub-groups;

a)     Those playing a direct role in the incident, of which there are two.

b)     Those being furthest away from the incident and not playing a direct role, of which there are two.

For the two sub groups with their locations, distance between them and level of involvement to all recall the same events independently of each other, and all statements failing to identify any event in line with their peer group outside of their own witness group or the original statement of complaint, and to all recall the same ‘new’ events is in my experience unheard of. Accordingly, in my opinion this raises a big question mark over the credibility and accuracy of the statements. In my opinion this strongly indicates a cross flow of information between the two sub-groups’ members.

                 

TIME INFLUENCE AND LEVEL OF OBSERVATION.

In accordance with the ‘witness behavioural approach’, it is my understanding that the time between the incident and witness statements can have a detrimental effect on recollections if the time between is great or the observation is ‘accidental’.

The time between the event and statements here can be measured in months, not a great deal of time and as for accidental observation, new Councillors awareness at the time would surely have been heightened because as new Councillors it was their first Council meeting and they would therefore in my considered view have been likely to have taken special note of every event of the meeting.

The incident was so loud and intense, and within such a relatively small and quiet class room, that it is inconceivable in my view other than that all Councillors, especially new councillors, would have been hyper aware of what transpired. Indeed, it is most likely in my opinion that the incident, because of its intenseness, would have been strongly imprinted in their memories.

Given such circumstances it is entirely reasonable in my view to expect all Councillors to recall at least one event accurately. Equally, it would not be reasonable to expect all Councillors to recall all events of the incident accurately.

It would also be unreasonable in my view to expect an entire group of witnesses to all recall the same events as each other because individuals process the information differently. Again it would be equally unreasonable in my opinion for the same witness group to all recall the same ‘new’ events, without prior sharing of information.

Statistically, in my opinion it would be virtually impossible that two of the three main participants [Cllrs. Bell and Fortnum] are unable to recall a single actual event, it being equally impossible in my opinion, for these two witnesses to, independently of each other, recall the same ‘new’ events that didn’t actually occur during the incident.

No other witness whose evidence I have seen, whether Councillor or member of the public, mentions or recalls any of the following;

1.              Mr. Lyons being the aggressor;

2.              Cllr. Bell sitting with his back to Mr. Lyons and responding over his shoulder;

3.              Cllr. Bell being calm and displaying no aggression.

If any of the above events had taken place it would in my opinion be entirely reasonable to expect at least one other witness in Group A or a member of the public to have recalled or mentioned at least one of these events, they do not!

In my opinion, for the two main participants from Group B [Cllrs. Bell and Fortnum] to misinterpret their own actions, words and attitudes to such an extent that no other known witness [outside Group B] recognises them, is not a realistic position.

Summary:

Group A statements precisely fit with ‘witness group behaviour’ and profiles identified by studies as I understand them, they all recall different parts of the event and only when you combine those parts will you get a full and accurate picture of the original incident as described in the original statement of complaint. This indicates the statements were compiled independently of each other without a cross flow of information or influence from witness to witness.

Group B statements on the other hand do not fit any identified group behaviour patterns or profiles as I understand them, other than a “group in isolation” which indicates the group is ‘unreliable’, each witness recalling the same unsupported events, and considering this group is split into two sub groups it is in my considered view highly improbable that they would all recall the same ‘new’ events as each other, without a cross flow of information between group members.

If we add to this the fact that no events contained in the Group B statements match anything produced by their peer group and are not supported by any external account, nor have they identified any element of the original complaint in which they played such a pivotal role leaves them in my view utterly isolated.

Therefore if we take the content of the two sets of statements, it is my opinion that Group B fails on all and every count and is consequently unsustainable.

According to the Investigating Officer, Councillor Clappison seems to have felt unable to support his colleague Cllr. Bell, citing me as the reason he didn’t wish to comment Although how I affect his ability, as a long serving and experienced councillor to give a truthful statement to his governing body, the Standards Committee when requested to do so, I fail to comprehend.

CONCLUSION.

In my honest opinion it is impossible for the 2 sets of statements to be both accurate and truthful accounts whilst at the same time referring to the same incident because they are ‘Mutually Exclusive’.

Group A witness statements and statements by members of the public all independently concur with the events of the original statement of complaint. None of those witnesses appear to recall or recognise any event put forward by Group B.

Unfortunately for Group B, in my honest opinion, the changes that have been introduced are far too severe, and by crudely attempting to reverse the roles of the 2 main participants. I believe that, by creating and introducing this ‘second event’, Group B has defeated it’s own position.

Group B statements are at odds with everything I know about the incident, they are apparently unable to recall one single event of the incident. Instead, in my opinion every witness in this group appears to recall events that simply cannot have happened and every witness in this group appears to recall the same ‘new’ events as each other.

Cllrs. Bell, Fortnum, Mendham and Fenwick have to-date refused to make any comment on the validity of the content of their statements. If there is some innocent explanation, their position of silence must change and they must give that innocent explanation. If not, their silence will continue to damage confidence in Local Government, the Parish Council’s good name and cast a shadow on the reputation of their colleagues serving on the Council alongside them.  There are 9 statements from Parish Councillors relating to this incident, and in my honest opinion I believe only half of them can be truthful accounts, a shadow is cast over the integrity of all until that explanation is given.

I am aware that East Riding Council read this Blog and I would urge them to conduct a thorough and independent investigation to identify those false statements.

I also believe those Councillors who had the courage and were prepared to stand up and give their honest statements need support. At the moment the same brush is tarnishing all Councillors and it clearly tells other Councillors who might feel it righ to give honest statements regarding any incident in the future not to bother because doing so may also adversely reflect on their reputations. 

I believe Cllrs. Mendham and Fenwick being the furthest from the incident and possibly, in my honest opinion, having being influenced by other witnesses, unwittingly gave inaccurate statements to the Investigating Officer. Should that be the case I believe Cllrs. Mendham and Fenwick should withdraw their statements at the earliest opportunity and correct the error.

It is my honestly held opinion that any honest person or reasonable member of the public reading this article could hold the same opinion as me having full regard to all of the circumstances as supplied to me by the Investigating Officer for the Standards Committee.

Ken Lyons.

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.