PRESTON PARISH MEETING 20 MAY 2015.

THE PARISH MEETING 20 MAY 2015.

What can I say, an unmitigated disaster, again! This has happened every year for at least the last decade!!  And each time the council regurgitate the usual excuse of ‘it was on the Notice Board so there’s nothing more we can do”.

I was unable to attend due to illness but I am reliably informed there was just 1 resident who attended, 2 councillors and parish clerk. The Parish Council won’t bat an eye at that or give it a second thought. The fact is this was the Annual Parish Meeting for residents and it’s the legal duty of the council to ensure it takes place within a specified period. I would have thought the council also had a responsibility to ensure its success but it would appear the council takes every possible step to ensure the meeting takes place in name only and beyond that it is totally ineffective!

The facts are that I pushed for the Parish Meeting to be planned for 6 months ahead of the date of the meeting and I was arguing that case from May 2014. I had 2 other councillors who were willing to join me in forming a committee with some residents and planning for the meeting and making arrangements to engage with residents to try and make the meeting a success. We had plans for Posters, leaflet drops and suggested agenda items, we planned to have hot and cold refreshments available, we were even prepared to cover the cost of promoting the meeting out of our own pockets, that’s how important we believed it to be.

 The council did as far as I recall agree to put plans in place to make the meeting a success, as is often the case the matter was never mentioned again and nothing was actioned, even though the whole council agreed to take it forward, following the meeting someone decided to bin it and as usual that was the end of it, its happened time after time!

There are some very important matters and issues not least of all financial issues that residents need to be aware of and need to have the opportunity to discuss and debate in public because the issues potentially effect every household in the village. It does appear the council or those few people controlling the council have no wish for residents to be aware of these issues and will take almost any steps to prevent engagement with residents.

There are lots of local issues that I would imagine are of interest to residents and issues they would like to see discussed at an official level and in cases action taken, they include, Cemetery, Play Park, Foot Paths, Traffic and Parking, Dog Fowling, Preston Playing Fields, Jubilee Trees, Emergency Plan, allotments etc. etc., the list just goes on.

It really is time residents had their say, there are just a couple of people who are denying all other residents the opportunity to have their say, that needs to change!

Response to Preston Debate Page.

Response to Preston Village Debate Page.

We would like to reply to a comment on Preston Debate page by Carol Osgerby who seems to think we are asking for a “public enquiry” (that should be 'inquiry') and want Preston council taxpayers to pay for it!! Either you haven’t managed to grasp what we’re about or your maliciously putting forward misinformation in order to help the council by generating ill feeling towards our members.

You are the first person that has mentioned a public enquiry, where did you think that one up from, we have never mentioned a public enquiry. If you’re going to comment please read our material first and carefully to ensure you understand it and please don’t add emotive and expensive words like “public enquiry”, Preston doesn’t have the financial means to cover the cost of a public enquiry so let us not start making silly and scurrilous statements attributing them to people who have never said them.

It would be a good starting point to read your own Debate Page rules because your comment breaks a number of them, you may be in danger of having to remove yourself from your own page. The rules we think you breach are attributing such statements to people who haven’t said them is dishonest and may be interpreted as libelous, no persistent attacks on individuals who cannot defend themselves on your debate page, be kind, polite and honest.

So you cannot misunderstand, we have asked for an “Independent Investigation” into Parish Councillors submitting false statements to the Standards Committee, that we presume would be carried out by the Monitoring Officer of East Riding Council on behalf of the Standards Committee, the financial cost to Preston council taxpayers……Nil!

If we were simply trying to cost Preston money we would complain about councillors spending public funds on planning permissions without council approval, which would cost Preston a few thousand pounds. One of our main platforms is that we are against any public money being wasted on such exercises, especially money from the council taxpayers of Preston.

You begin your comment by quite gleefully stating “Still only 6 signatures on that petition”, just so there can be no misunderstanding on your part. It makes no difference to us how many signatures the petition generates whether its 6 or 60 or 600. The petition could have been posted for 12 months, if you would care to read it you will see we posted the petition for only 6 months, if we were interested in getting as many signatures as possible we would have posted it for the full 12 months.

Can we also note that you posted your comment a mere 4 days after your initial link to the petition, you really shouldn’t be quite so keen to belittle those who do not always agree with you. If we recall correctly your the person who believes we should display “generosity of spirit”, you would appear to have little yourself!

It is entirely possible that a number of people who have read your comment do not read this blog, maybe you would like to post a link to this response in the interests of balance and fairness?

Reply to "A Preston Parish Councillor"

Response to, A Preston Parish Councillor.

You will see from my initial response that I’m delighted with this particular comment for obvious reasons.

You gave your apologies for not being courageous enough to comment using your name, please don’t feel that way there is really no need for it, I find you exceptionally brave to comment as you have. Your clearly on the council to do your best for Preston because, like others, you recognise this “spectacle” is damaging our village reputation but in your case you have the guts to put forward a possible solution and bring this episode to a close at the risk of a personal cost to yourself, I do hope your vision can be matched by others taking appropriate action. You have not simply suggested I be quiet and go away but that I have a right to clear my name by any means open to me, I thank you for that.

I’m sure there will be those who question the authenticity of your comment due to the lack of identity and justifiably so, I too would question it on those same grounds. This comment was placed a couple of days ago in response to someone else’s comment and I did not feel comfortable publishing it, again for obvious reasons. I was then called by this councillor and after a few niceties’ I was asked why the comment had not been published, I then felt comfortable in publishing it.

I know you will understand when I say my confidence in East Riding is not high at this point but if I feel confident in any such process I would abide by the outcome and end this action.

Again thank you and lets hope others have the bravery you have shown and follow suite, we would all like to see the truth come out.

Reply to comment, Play Park.

Comment reply, Are you accusing the Child minder of cheating in some way?

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident.

At this point, no I’m not accusing the child minder of cheating in anyway, I am questioning the wisdom of a councillor using a charity of which only councillors are trustees, with no resident representation. Such an action can very easily be misinterpreted, especially given this councillors occupation and proximity to the Play Park, which can only damage the efforts of the person in question succeeding in her project.

There is a precedent for this when the old administration set up the New Community Hall Charity and sought to build a Hall at a cost of something in the order of £400,00. This was all done very secretively without any consultation of residents and without any resident involvement, the whole thing was a farce from start to finish and ended up costing ratepayers many thousands of pounds with nothing to show for it. In fact I would suggest that there was so much secrecy that all documents relating to this project have been ‘hidden’ somewhere by the council in order that residents are denied access to that information.

The council did apply for grant funding but to achieve that income they would have to demonstrate that a village consultation had been carried out showing strong support for the project, but still the council wouldn’t ask residents. The record of Preston Parish Council on such projects is not a good one and if that one cost the parish so much money with nothing to show for it what assurances do we have that this one won’t follow suite?

If the organizers for the Play Park are raising funds by their own efforts and hope to fund the whole project without turning to the public purse they could easily open a bank account in whatever name they call themselves and not use the Preston Playing Fields Charity (PPFC) as a vehicle. As it stands and according to the leaflet we received PPFC is being used as a holding account so we (residents) are already involved in the scheme and therefore have a right to ask questions.

Being open and transparent would be far more helpful to you and I believe would help your efforts a great deal. Produce a document that outlines the scheme, deliver it to all households and organise a consultation venue over perhaps 2 or 3 days to accommodate people who work being able to attend at some point convenient to them, this could also be dealt with by utilizing the Parish Council website.  Give an overview of your project with slides etc. possibly powerpoint and have all documentation prepared so any attendees can record their views in writing and arrange an independent person or group to collate figures. You would then hopefully be in a position to demonstrate the strong support for your project and take it forward with confidence.

It isn’t for me to say how you should conduct a consultation, that is a matter for yourselves but it is important that you get it right first time.

If following any such consultation there is the required support for your project, I will tell you the same as I told the council in relation to their project. If support is shown to exist at a predetermined level I would not only support their efforts I would actively campaign in their support. You have an offer there if you are prepared to be open and transparent.

I can recall a leaflet being delivered in about November 2012 informing us that the scheme was well on the way at a cost of £144,000 and construction was due to start in early 2013. I understand at that time the organizers had managed to raise a couple of thousand pounds towards the cost of the project, where was the balance coming from, I believe the leaflet informed us that an amount from ‘commuted’, sums was earmarked for the financial pot. This is money held by East Riding for Preston so Preston residents are already financially involved, I also understand that the organizers had ‘coffee mornings’ to generate support and a number of mothers had been asked their opinion when picking up their children from school. That doesn’t exactly amount to a consultation of residents, if public funds are to be used I happen to believe that the public should be given a chance to voice there opinion and have a say in whether or not the scheme is a worthy cause, especially in light of the Parish Councils history.

Personally I have absolutely no objection to a Play Park being erected at the pavilion for the use of children and if the organizers are raising the full sums needed then I applaud their efforts and wish them well.

I understand there used to be a play park at the pavilion which had to be demolished and removed because of vandalism, the proposed park would need the involvement of the police in the planning stage in order that when the park is complete and residents need to have unruly youths (if there are any) removed from the facility during closing or nighttime hours the police are in a position to act on the requests. I also understand that the play park would not have the benefit of security fencing, which raises other questions.

My understanding from the previous Parish Council Chairman is that youths used to break bottles and glue the glass onto the slide, who would want their children sliding down that? Without a security fence that had to be opened in the morning who would carry out any safety inspection before any child used the area? You might consider the risk of such an event as small, but on the off chance that it did happen the consequences for any innocent child could well be catastrophic, that can only raise the risk profile.

I also understand you now have the assistance of another councillor to progress the scheme and I wish you well. We shall be publishing a post on ‘Preston Charities’ in the near future and your activity I’m sure will feature in that, it would be very welcome if we could list your activity in a positive light, if you would like to contact us please do so by email and we will give you our assurance of anonymity. If you have any details that might help your cause and wish to have them published here we would be very pleased to do that for you, but without prior discussion we would assess the details on merit and comment accordingly

I do hope this answers your comment.

Thank you for reading and for your comment.

Comment reply, Are you a solicitor?

Reply to comment, Are you a solicitor.

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident

No I am not a solicitor in fact I’m probably the furthest thing you could find from that Profession. I’m sure there are many good councillors both in our region and in the country who are also not solicitors.

Local Government is not something you can get involved in and then simply do things just as you would like, that could only lead to chaos. Councils are a product of law and are regulated by those laws (to avoid chaos). In order to function councils are required to abide by those laws of which there are many. It goes without saying that people who are involved with Local Government need by necessity to at least have an awareness and some level of understanding when it comes to those laws.

As does anyone who wishes to take an interest in the activities of a council, without that awareness a person would not be able to make reasonable sense of why councils do certain things or why they do them in a in a particular way. I’m sure the vast majority of councillors, parish clerks and council officers are also not solicitors but it would be almost impossible for them to do their jobs without a reasonable understanding of what the law requires of them. There has to be one caveat to that, if a councillor has no interest in attempting to understand his or her role or the role of their council and so relies fully on the advice (interpretation) of another person there is the risk that they will fall foul of that persons own misinterpretation and that will be reflected in the services received by residents.

When it comes to you or I making an attempt at interpreting the law as laypersons, the government makes available approved documents and guidance notes so we are able to make a reasonable attempt at that interpretation.

I was fortunate enough to be able to successfully sit a legal exam as part of the qualifications I needed to do my job of work, that qualification was a HND in Law. It specialized in Liability Law and it took me three years to achieve, I taught Liability Law and Risk Management at Laceby Road College, Grimsby (which was at the time an annex of Hull College) for a couple of years.

Over the last couple of years I have spoken to a number of qualified Parish Clerks who’s overriding advice was to obtain a copy of their ‘bible’ Local Council Administration by Charles Arnold-Baker, which I have purchased a while ago and am currently reading my way through it.

I intended to enroll to study for the CiLCA Parish Clerks qualification, the National Association of Local Councils informed me that I would be able to enroll and sit the qualification ‘All you need is access to a helpful Parish Council and information’ , sadly that’s a failure on both counts in Preston.

I would suggest that I am no more or no less qualified to interpret laws governing parish council administration than any councillor currently sitting on Preston Parish Council but I would consider myself as qualified as any of them to reach a view.

The second part of your question was 'how do you know what you are saying is right', the simple answer is 'I don't know I'm right', the difficulty arises when a considered view differs from that of the parish council, without a conversation it's impossible to resolve that difference and I cannot reach a resolution by having a conversation with myself, whilst the council’s response is invariably ‘matter closed’, even prior to any conversation, we are destined to forever have those differences or at least until the council is changed for a more engaging one.

I do not harbour any secret desires to become a councillor or clerk, my outside interest lies in music but if I believe, as I do, the council are acting illegally and not in the best interests of residents I accept the need to understand the requirements placed upon them.

I do hope this answers your query, thank you for your comment and for reading our Blog.

Reply to comment, Community Hall

Reply to comment

Witten for the Blog by a Preston resident

I would agree with you that a village hall is normally under the remit of the Parish Council. However, Preston Parish Council established a Charity (Preston Community Hall Charity) with the aim of providing a Community Hall for Preston, which in itself is a good cause that warrants support from residents.

To get support from residents they need to be part of the process and involved with the activity that was aimed at providing a Community Hall. In my opinion, by being part of things gives residents a sense of involvement and ‘ownership’ of any such project and therefore boosts it’s progress.

We have had a running battle with Preston Parish Council for almost three years now on the provision of a Community Hall. This is because, having established the Charity the council then went underground and pursued the project in an underhand way with no involvement from the community and all things to do with the hall appeared to be very secretive. The community wasn’t even allowed a say in any sort of consultation and consequently very few residents knew of the project.

The council spent about £7500 of residents money getting plans drawn up and applying for the demolition of the existing hall in order that a very expensive New Community Hall could be built. The council continued to resist enquiries seeking information relating to the Community Hall insisting that they couldn’t even mention the words Community Hall during council meetings or any other time because there are laws that prevent them from doing so, that sounds completely illogical to me.

We have never been able to locate the existence of any such laws and despite requests that the council identify those restrictions, they have never responded, that can only be because no such legal restrictions exist and what the Parish Council were telling us was entirely untrue and that can only have been deliberate on the councils part.

In fact, the Charities Commission support Council Charities giving updates to residents and public during council meetings as that helps ‘connect’ to the community. Both the councils stance and the Charities Commission stance cannot both be right, one of them must be dishonest, which one?

We were promised and assured that at the Preston Community Hall Charity AGM 2010 all questions would be answered fully and to the satisfaction of residents. Needless to say that AGM meeting was very well attended and we eagerly attended to receive that information.

The meeting was opened by the Parish Council Chairman and we were informed that the only business on the agenda was the accounts and that no other subject was listed for discussion, once again the council reneged on those promises and assurances at the last minute, not at all unusual for Preston Parish Council. The room was full of residents waiting to hear about progress and activity on the Community Hall, you can imagine the commotion that created, the AGM lasted 1 hour and 2 minutes.

If I can just return to the application for planning permission for a moment, I believe the approval for the building of a new hall was renewed in January 2011 but the permission for demolition of the old village hall was not, therefore any new structure could not be built because there was no permission to clear the site for that purpose and the plans were abandoned resulting in a wastage of £7,500 of residents money. We were informed by the East Riding Council Planning Department that they had withdrawn the application because the Parish Council had not responded to their enquiries, the Parish Council deny this. Again both accounts cannot be correct so one must be intentionally misleading.

I asked the council in writing in 2010 if there had been any kind of survey carried out on the existing Village Hall that professionally established it’s current condition and possible suitability for refurbishment. I received the reply (in writing) that as far as the council were aware there had never been any such survey, I knew this to be untrue because I was in possession of a survey copy that had been carried out on the Village Hall just a few years before and it gave the hall a clean bill of health, structurally!

After pressing the council they finally agreed that there had indeed been a survey but denied it had been carried out for the Parish Council and made the point that the Parish Council had not commissioned or funded the survey. Prior to this the council had always denied the existence of any survey, why?

There are current councillors who attended council meetings regularly to ask questions on this subject in 2010 but since joining the council have gone very quiet and would seem to no longer have any desire for transparency.

If there are legal restrictions on the council it’s very simple and easy to state those restrictions and that would end the matter, without that it can only be that the council is being deliberately untruthful or deliberately obstructive.

So we return to a village hall being the remit of the Parish Council, in any normal council I would agree with that assumption but with Preston Parish Council things are never that simple or clear cut.

Much of this has now been superseded by the new council (sorry, Charity) allowing residents to refurbish the existing hall.

I do hope this helps but some of these items are to be dealt with in greater detail in a later posting.

Thanks for reading and commenting. 

Preston Parish Council Meeting 09/01/13

PRESTON PARISH COUNCIL MEETING. 09/01/13

Written for the blog by a Preston resident

As normal we attended the monthly meeting of Preston Parish Council yesterday evening, the experience was a little surreal, almost none of the usual antics of spouse participation, clerk over involvement or sloppy procedure, really quite refreshing!

It was generally a well run meeting with only two minor incidents of note. The first is that there was a general discussion of a non agenda item, I believe to do with parking within the village. There is nothing amiss or out of order with that but the Chairman (there is no personal criticism here) then called for clarification (not a vote) and it was apparently ‘agreed’ the council had no difficulties with the suggested outcome, is that finalising it?, should it have been put on a future agenda? I’m not sure, I’m not a Parish Clerk.

The second item of note was that there wasn’t the usual talking about private matters between councillors during the meeting, at least not to the normal extent. However there was an occasion when the previous Chair had his contribution disrupted by idle chatter within council, to the extent that he got a little frustrated and declared “am I talking to myself’ and had to hold his contribution until order was restored.

There was even a suspension of animosity between certain councillors, who were calling each other by their Christian names, I was amazed!

At the start of the meeting there were four members of the public present with two advisors. Two members of the public attended to solicit clarification from the council in regard to a prospective Planning Application, on receiving a response from the council they promptly left the meeting.

That just left a ward councillor and 4 other people.

There was nothing awe inspiring, no great leaps forward and nothing controversial. It was an uneventful, run of the mill council meeting with nothing outstanding to comment on, just the usual items that are always there.

Why such a transformation, have the factions now fused, have they been ‘advised’, something has had an effect but Its only one meeting lets not rush into making comments at this stage.

There is one other thing, Notices are now being posted in time, at least for this short period since being made aware of it so hopefully that will now become standard practice.

In my humble opinion, all things considered it was a good meeting.

Letter to Ward Councillors

LETTER TO WARD COUNCILLORS.

 

Written for the blog by a Preston resident

I have recently sent a letter to two of our Ward Councillors (30/12/12) so that I can be sure they are aware of the current situation with Preston Parish Council.

I reproduce the text here, as I am sure there is bound to be some people who comment on its content inaccurately. I have redacted the document to remove personal identity, this may change in the future depending on Legal advice, which is currently being sought.

When referring to the incident, which I shall cover in much greater detail in the near future, I am I believe, understandably angry that no less than four Preston Parish Councillors are prepared to lie ‘in concert’ in order to simply avoid a colleague from having to give a minor apology to a resident.

In my correspondence to Ward Councillors I refer to a letter sent to Preston Parish Council on 25^th September following the Standards Committee hearing into my complaint, because it has been referred to I also include that letter in this posting. The letter incidentally has never been acknowledged or replied to as far as I can recall, not unusual at all.

My letters to Ward Councillors have both been answered.

Ward Councillors                                                                                                                

South West Holderness                                                                                                                          

East Riding of Yorkshire Council                                                  

30/12/12

Dear Councillor

Re: Preston Parish Council.

I do not profess to be an authority on Local Government Administration. Though I have had some dealings with Preston Parish Council over the last three years, my relationship with the council has always been acrimonious, that experience has shaped my impression and opinion of how our Local Government operates. Needles to say, in line with the vast majority of the public, my opinions of local government and democracy are not very high.

I am sure Preston Parish Council will tell you that I am a rude trouble maker who habitually writes letters of complaint, that smokescreen seems to serve them well and appears to prevent outside people from looking further into the dispute between us.

My current anger centers around an investigation by the Standards Committee into a complaint I made against Cllr. ****of Preston Parish Council, that was concluded on 25^th September 2012. During that investigation four Preston Councillors, ****. ******, ******and ******knowingly submitted false witness statements intended to mislead the Standards Committee, their statements were accepted without much scrutiny despite rather lengthy protestations from myself. If longstanding Parish Councillors have no respect for an official investigation by the Standards Committee they cannot have any respect for other democratic processes or laws governing our local democracy and if East Riding Council so readily accept such dishonesty from Parish Councillors, the Standards Committee is defunct and it shapes the publics perception of local politics as corrupt.

The statements given by the above councillors are all so precisely similar in content and yet so far removed from reality, the chances of them being truthful is miniscule. Statistically, the only possible way for those statements to all have the same components and elements yet diverge so far from reality, by people who were the instigators of the incident and involved directly, can only be achieved by careful consideration and collusion by the above councillors. All the published statements are so far from the truth of the event that not one accurate element is contained within any of them.

I am aware that a number of councillors who were concerned at this level of dishonesty within Preston Parish Council wrote to the Monitoring Officer who remains adamant the he will not look into the allegations further. The councillors who wrote to Mr. ******* include, Cllr. *****, *******and *******.

Those dishonest councillors are now emboldened to progress their bullying and intimidation of members of the public. I always occupy the same seat during council meetings near to the front table because I have a hearing problem and that seating position gives me the best chance of hearing what transpires. As far as I am aware I have only informed East Riding Council of my level of hearing loss and offered to forward relevant Audiograms, if as stated East Riding Council are to take no further action there is no necessity to forward that personal medical information to an outside third party. I did specifically request that East Riding should not give my personal medical information to any third party.

Unfortunately it would appear that East Riding have given that personal information to Preston Parish Council because Cllr. ****and ******* now take up their seating positions as they were on 11^th May 2011, alongside where I normally sit, giving very audible comments such as ‘you’ll have to speak up, I’m as deaf as a post’. I know from their looks that those comments are entirely for my benefit and amount to intimidation of a member of the public. It also serves the purpose of letting other councillors know that it would be unwise to act against them or pursue alternative views to theirs because they are now untouchable and enjoy the backing of East Riding Council.

Following the Standards Committee decision on 25^th September 2012, I wrote to the Parish Council and began the letter by saying ‘I would imagine that at this point councillors are congratulating themselves and patting each other on the back on achieving the outcome they have. It is however, a worthwhile exercise to examine how that was achieved and the methods used’, we now have Cllr. ******* pointedly patting ***self on the back clearly to let me know that they are untouchable and neither I nor anyone else can do anything about it, again its intimidation, and they now enjoy the approval and support of East Riding Council and that gives then a certain level of impunity.

Preston Parish Council pay scant regard to the laws that govern our Local Authorities, as if they are somehow exempt from such ties and inconveniences, an example is,

Preston Parish Council often give just 2 clear days notice of council meetings when the legal requirement is a minimum of 3 clear days notice, without that notice the Parish Council has no legal authority to convene a council meeting or to conduct any business on behalf of the council or parish. During a Council Meeting (October 2012) where the council had failed to give a minimum notice of 3 clear days the council co-opted a new member with no legal authority to do so.

Consequently we now effectively have a member of the public sitting in council, taking part in council discussions and voting on items of agenda that affects the Parish and its residents, which could make all subsequent council meetings challengeable! How can members of the public be expected to have confidence in local government if this is the standard of behaviour? Procedural control during council meetings is almost non-existent with the Parish Clerk often running meetings and advising councillors how best to vote, it is almost becoming a matter of course that Councillors spouses contribute to council discussions and that must affect the outcomes! It would appear the whole Parish Council process is becoming laughable.

Preston Parish Council have in recent years wasted many, many thousands of pounds of tax payers money, that wastage is well documented and easily verified and the council seems to consider that to be of no importance but I’m sure residents of Preston will not agree with them when they have the relevant information.

Preston Parish Council is in my view poorly managed, lacking in transparency, failing to engage with residents, manage public funds in a cavalier manner and disregard legal requirements when it suites them. These are all symptoms of a failing council with little to show in the way of leadership and the situation will only worsen with the passing of time. The Parish Council have now resorted to barring me from being able to contact them by email, I can only contact them by letter apparently, my reading is that this comes under the heading of discrimination against an individual member of the public by a Local Authority, all because they find it difficult to answer questions that are put to them.

On the good side, for the first time since the mid 1990’s Preston has had the benefit of residents being involved in a village project, namely the management of our Community Hall and their achievements have been exemplary with an outstanding improvement and refurbishment of the Hall, which is a credit to all who have been involved. This result surely demonstrates that residents are the power behind such projects not councils or councillors who merely act as ‘facilitators’ by handing the project to residents, councils cannot achieve such results on their own.

Finally, I have taken this step of writing to you so that at some point in the future I can say with confidence ‘I did inform Ward Councillors’ when asked, as I do not intend to let matters rest here.

Yours sincerely

*** *****

Preston Parish Council                                                                                                ***********

1 Grassam Close                                                                                                            ***********

Preston                                                                                                                        Preston

HU12 8XF                                                                                                            HU12 ***

                                                                                                                        25/09/12

Dear Councillor

Re. ************************.

I would imagine that at this point councillors are congratulating themselves and patting each other on the back on achieving the outcome they have. It is however, a worthwhile exercise to examine how that was achieved and the methods used.

All councillors were at the inaugural council meeting on May 11^th 2011 and are fully aware of what transpired during that meeting and the incident to which my complaint related. I would also suggest that before councillors congratulate themselves too much, you should examine your consciences and, ask if you have done anything honourable or right in relation to this matter, I would strongly suggest you have not.

At the time of the incident as you are all aware, I was responding to the Chairman’s comment on the Audit Report recently carried out on the council, at no time did I make any comment towards Cllr. **** before his outburst, my only comments toward Cllr. **** were in my defence during his outburst.

Three councillors, ***********, *******and *******did respond with honest recollections and were impartial in their statements, I would not ask for more, thank you for your honesty.

Quotes from 3 witness statements submitted to and reproduced to me by the Standards Committee from Cllrs. *******, *******and *******, whose statements were unsurprisingly all in line with each other and clearly demonstrate how the outcome was achieved, some of those comments were as follows;

 

It is not Cllr. ***** nature to be forceful or aggressive’ (Cllr. *******)

 

‘ Mr ***** made derogatory and aggressive comments to Cllr. **** who was sat with his back to Mr *****. 

 

‘Cllr. **** did not turn to face Mr **** but spoke to him quietly over his shoulder’,

 

Councillor ******* went so far as to deny having to calm Cllr. **** down and stated that ‘I did not get the impression that Councillor **** was aggressive in any way’ This statement is disgraceful because Cllr. *******, as you all know, did calm Cllr. **** down and whilst gently turning him back towards the table said ‘its not worth it *****

Every last one of those statements is a travesty of the truth, the authors are fully aware of that fact as is the whole council, there is more from these councillor’s but I shall restrict myself to the above four quotes, they are sufficient to shame the council.

I am particularly appalled at Cllr. ******* who was sat next to Councillor **** so she knows exactly what happened and how the incident played out. She appears to be the ‘chief witness’ to the incident and for her to display this level of dishonesty is truly reprehensible and difficult to comprehend, especially to the Standards Committee investigating officer, councillors clearly have no respect for any of our democratic institutions?

Suffice it to say, witnesses stated that I was the aggressive instigator who is frequently abusive and disruptive during council meetings, you should all hang your heads in shame, councillors are supposed to be trustworthy, honest and upstanding citizens of a community. That is clearly not the case with Preston Parish Councillor’s but we have known that for a number of years and it was naive of me to expect an honest response from Councillors.

Cllr. ***** statement of course denied ever saying anything untoward and in fact he denied ever turning round to face me, he dealt with my alleged abusive and aggressive comments towards him quite calmly, softly and over his shoulder. Anyone who was there will recognise this to be pure fantasy, Councillor **** is clearly incapable of taking responsibility for his actions.

Cllr. *** did however state that he was responding to my letter to the council of January 2011 when I accused the council of Lying to the public gallery (on a particular issue). He had ample opportunity to challenge me in the intervening four months prior to his outburst, not only during council meetings but also on the streets of Preston, during that period of time he and I had been stood alongside each other in Johnsons Hardware Store but there was no challenge from Cllr. ****, so why choose that particular meeting four months after the event?

I would suggest these councillors statements have confirmed my judgement of January 2011 to be absolutely accurate and correct, these councillors are dishonest and have unequivocally proven the point with their dishonest responses to the Standards Committee. They have clearly shown themselves not to be trustworthy or honest members of our community and they clearly cannot be trusted to represent residents of Preston. The Council Chairman and Vice Chairman’s views which supported my complaint was of no consequence in the face of such orchestrated dishonesty.

This level of dishonesty and deception from councillors has been a mainstay of my and other residents lack of faith in and opposition to our elected officials for some time and, that is why we would wish to make the council more open and accountable, this result spurs me on with renewed vigour and determination. Councillor’s dishonesty in their recollections demonstrates their utter contempt for our democratic institutions, they consider themselves to be above the law and immune from sanction.

An equal number of councillors chose not to respond to the Standards Committee, in doing so those councillors in my view, approve of and support those dishonest statements, they should be ashamed at their lack of response and should ask themselves if they are in fact suitable to be councillors. It is the lack of response from those councillors and their unwillingness to give an honest account of the incident that allowed 4 dishonest councillors to prevail.

There is something very rotten within Preston Parish Council and it appears that new councillors are either incapable or unwilling to deal with it and therefore have now become part of the problem.

The council through their actions on this matter have nothing to celebrate and certainly have nothing to be proud of, on the contrary, the council, as a corporate body should be ashamed to be associated with and to be supporting such dishonesty in public office.

I do not consider ERYC to have been impartial, fair or equitable in their deliberations or conclusions and have clearly failed to adequately and diligently investigate the incident. Consequently ERYC have not, in my opinion, discharged their obligations under statutory provisions in an appropriate manner, I shall now be seeking redress from the Local Government Ombudsman with regard to ERYC and this matter. Unfortunately I may have to go through ERYC complaints procedure as a first step and that has already been actioned.

Yours sincerely

*** *****

CC. All councillors

 

Role of a Parish Councillor

ROLE OF A PARISH COUNCILLOR

This is meant to give those readers with little or no experience with Parish Councils a basic understanding of what a parish councillor would be expected to do and the basic qualifications for becoming a parish councillor.

Description.

Role: Parish Councillor.               

Responsible to: All people resident in the parish.

Regular liaison with: Other councillors, local authorities and residents.

Period of service : Four years with possible extension if re-elected.

Salary: Voluntary position with some expenses able to be paid in certain circumstances.

Main purpose

Representing the views of all residents within your parish.

Secondary purpose

• As part of a local council you will have responsibility for running local services which may include: open spaces, play areas, village halls, community car schemes and potentially much more.
• Deciding on how much to raise through the council tax in order to deliver your council’s services.
• Influencing and shaping the long term development policy for the parish, and as part of the planning process, comment on planning applications in the parish.
• Improve the quality of life and the environment in their local area.
• Working to identify issues which are important to the lives of the residents you represent.
• Working to bring about improvements through local projects, lobbying other service providers and working in partnership with other parishes and agencies.

History of parish councils

Parish councils have their origins in medieval times, in an era when money was seldom used and when few people lived in the countryside. Communities came together in order to organise land management, agriculture and settle disputes.

The current system of parish councils was formed in 1896. There are currently around 10,000 parish councils in the country.

Any community can ask to have a parish council and, in fact, many new parishes have been formed in recent years -particularly in urban areas.

Local councils have evolved considerably over the last 1000 or so years, but one thing remains the same: they are the tier of local government which is closest to individual communities and therefore have the greatest potential for identifying, understanding and addressing the needs of the communities they serve.

While some larger councils are run along party political lines, there is no expectation that you have to join a political party. The vast majority of parish councils are not split by party politics.

Basic Qualification as a councillor.

Over 21 and on the electoral register : Essential

A resident of the parish for which you are standing(there are certain Exceptions) : Essential

Able to attend regular evening meetings: Essential

Interest in local issues and things that affect people: Essential 

Keen to improve the local environment and quality of life: Desirable

An understanding and willingness to represent the views of the whole community: Essential

An interest in learning and developing your role in the community: Desirable