Council achievements 1997 - 2011.

Council achievements 1997-2011.

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident.

If I could, as promised, give an update to my response to AT yesterday.

I wrote to the Parish Council on 12^th November 2010 asking the council to outline all the things they had achieved for Preston in the 13 years they had been in charge. I had also suggested that many good business and professional people in Preston don’t put themselves up for election to the council because they are unable to work with existing councillors.

Three months later (08/02/11) the Preston Parish Council Chairman responded, informing me that the council considered that some of the best business and professional people in Preston were already on the council, themselves! In taking 3 months to respond they had ample time to build a portfolio of their achievements for Preston and it’s residents but they could only come up with a couple of items, they had planted some bulbs in the grass verges near Preston signs, planted some trees (numbers not specified, so it will be very few) and in recent years they had acquired and developed a plot of land into an amenity area at the junction of Pinfold Court.

This plot of land was the public toilet that had to be demolished because of drug taking, I understand, it was then grassed over.

What on earth were these people doing for 13 years!!

Below I reproduce a sizable extract of my response to those achievements, I obviously wasn't happy,

‘I agree there has in the past been an insufficient number of candidates for the returning officer to call an election. I am however aware of good people who have joined Preston Parish Council and left soon after because existing councillors are seen as inept and difficult to work alongside. The current Preston Parish Council is the major cause of lack of progress in Preston and nothing will be achieved whilst the current council sits. The ineptitude of the current council is well established in the village and my contact with neighbouring parish councils confirms there is no good opinion of Preston Parish Council, you may consider that it is only me who holds those views, you are wrong but far too insular to be aware of any outside views!

In your letter you say ‘one may ask why have the many talented business and professional people in our immediate community not put themselves forward for election when the opportunity has arisen’ (I refer you to the above Para.), you then state ‘some members of the council would say they did’.  We have in my judgement already established that the current council suffer from a collective delusion of grandeur and I think that statement may well be another symptom of that condition.

If I might take you back to the 2007 election when 8 councillors stood for election. Preston has a parish council of 13 members, where were the other 5 councillors and more to the point, who where they (this information is easily available). I suggest they stood down before the election to ensure the remainder were ‘elected’, a number of them may well have then been co-opted back onto the council.

I also note councillor **********’ comment on her nomination form, which was, ‘Committed to improving the local community’. Of all the council meetings I have been to I have never seen or heard councillor ********** propose any measure that may have the benefit of improving the local community, although I have seen her nod her head in the right places and at the right time in approval of whatever the council leadership propose on many occasions. You have a number of other councillors who I have never heard utter a single word during any council meetings and my question must be ‘what are these people doing on the council, they have nothing to contribute so why are they on the council?....I can only suggest they are not there for the good of Preston, so they must by definition be on the council for their own purposes, although they do invariably cast their vote in favour of the council leadership, it may be that’s their worth?, other members rarely turn up and are therefore irrelevant to this discussion.

This position effectively gives us a parish council consisting of approximately 3 active members who are prepared to collude in order to achieve a minority decision which they know the majority of councillors will go along with simply for a quite life and with that those few councillors have created havoc, distrust, animosity and suspicion among the population it is meant to serve and do good works for. If you would like a definition of failure, you have just been given it!

In your last Para. of page 1 you proudly boast that you have planted some bulbs in verges near Preston signs and planted some trees and in recent years you have developed a small plot of land as an amenity area at the junction of Pinfold Court, this I presume is the small plot of land that has not been kept in a reasonable condition and is therefore of no use as an amenity area. Other parish councils have a Register of Assets, Preston Council it would seem may well have a Register of Dereliction as all sites that have this councils name on it are all in a state of dereliction and disrepair!  (this referred to the village hall, Preston playing fields pavilion and the hall in South Preston which was also virtually derelict  at the time)

Let me try to put your poultry achievements into prospective. There are 13 councillors who sit for a term of 4 years, this gives us a period of 52 man years and in that time you can only point to a few daffodil bulbs, a couple of trees and a derelict plot of land the size of a postage stamp! Every last one of you should hang your heads in shame and step aside in favour of people who are capable of actually getting things done. If we take this argument a step further you as a council have had an unopposed 4 terms of office which amounts to 208 man years, do you not think its time you accepted your inability to achieve anything and step down with just a little dignity rather than be sacked by the electors of Preston!

In response to Para. 1 Page 2, as I have said previously, I shall take whatever action I feel appropriate in my own time and at a time of my choosing. This will not be before May 5^th when I would hope to see a council installed worthy of its name.

Page 2, Para. 2, members of the public attending council meetings have been repeatedly told over many months that due to legal restrictions under charity law you are unable to use part of the hall as council office accommodation. Now that has been proven to be a lie you suddenly change to it being the churches fault due to restrictions in the lease. You currently ‘sub-let’ part of the hall to the allotment group because you charge them rent, I also understand you pay no or very little rates because you are a charity, yet you allow commercial activity within the hall which breaches the concession on rates. Let us not pretend you are all upstanding citizens who follow the law to the letter and spirit, you as a council bend and interpret the law as it best suites your purpose and I sincerely hope those breaches will come to light in the very near future and when that happens you may well be called to account. I take the view that the first action of any future council must be to carryout a full, thorough and independent audit of all areas of council activity over the last number of years and make people accountable at last! I would be quite happy to write and carry out such an audit and report accordingly’.

After such a long time in control of Preston Parish Council they had very little (well, nothing actually) to show for their time in office, these councillors have never been interested in Preston or it’s residents. Their time and interest was spent wasting precept money which amounted to many thousands of pounds on getting a new Community Hall which was clearly way beyond their abilities and as it turned out that was fortunate because it would have put Preston into debt for years to come. It would be worthwhile to point out that in connection with the New Community Hall that had been actively pushed forward by these people for at least 7 years, including applying for planning permission, yet there is not one single document or email that gives any mention to anything connected to that same project!

The big question is, what did the council do for at least 13 years, there’s no evidence they ever did anything! They certainly didn’t work hard on behalf of residents or Preston because if they had there would surely be more to show for their efforts?

The new council since May 2011 have simply continued in the same vein following the advice or instructions of the old crew. After 2 years of no progress it is beginning to look as though we shall reach the end of their term with very little, if anything to show for their time in office. If that becomes the case they will have let Preston down and they will have let residents down.

The major Problem in Preston is the longer serving councillors who had done so little in 13 years still want to continue that tradition and run the council for their own benefit and no-one is doing anything about it.

With regard to being told by the Chairman that there were legal restrictions preventing the council giving information  about the New Community Hall to residents or members of the public I requested information relating to those legal restrictions (Oct. 2010) they have never responded to that request, I include the request below (Item 1).

Preston Parish Council                                                                                               

                                                                                                14/10/2010

Freedom of Information Request

Dear ************

Could you please make the following information available to me.

1. During the Parish Council Meeting of 13/10/2010 ****** ********* repeatedly asserted that he could not discuss the Community Hall due to legal restrictions. Could you forward information of the legislation that ******* ********* was referring to? Could you also supply information regarding any legislation that inhibits the ability of elected council officials to discuss council business with residents.
   
   
2. Could I have relevant information relating to the cost of obtaining the lease on the village hall. Also all relevant information as to why the cost was so much higher than originally anticipated. How many times was paperwork issued to the council by the churches solicitors for completion.
   
   
3. Could you forward all information relating to the obtaining of plans for the new village hall, including all associated costs for architects drawings and taking the plans through planning permission.
   
   
   

There may be costs associated with the above that I am not aware of therefore could you please include all relevant costs.

Yours sincerely

*** *****

The ‘core group of councillors’ that I frequently refer to, in their time in office have taken Preston from a busy community with an active and occupied Sports Pavilion, to a village almost full of derelict sites and a community that has given up on trying to make any difference because of bullying tactics by the council.

Those councillors only interest is in their own agenda, which has nothing at all to do with helping Preston or it’s residents.

Why would they allow such dereliction to develop in Preston, we shall cover that in a later post.

The question I can’t answer is ‘Why on earth have new councillors allowed it to continue?’