4. Petition proposed by Preston Parish Council.

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Today (21/08/13) the poster proposed and approved unanimously by Preston Parish Council appeared in the Parish Notice Board, it is as described by the Chairman at the time of the meeting and contains information to residents who may wish to have the issues listed in this blog addressed. This information that quite rightly but very briefly explains resident’s legal rights should have been released by the council many years ago and, not as a reaction to this blog but it has now been released. For our part we will consider the poster one of our successes because without our persistence this information would never have been released and it is important information that residents should be aware of.

If we put the poster into context it has no value for us at all, we are already fully aware of the points and the legal references the poster contains, we have also considered them all some time ago and we have taken all those steps that the poster says we should as residents.

There is just one step we haven’t taken, that is to complain to the District Auditor, this we believe will be extremely expensive for the Parish and cannot be justified when there is a viable alternative which costs nothing and virtually no time, the council should produce the agenda and minutes which records council approval of the expenditure or give a full explanation to the resident who requested it, the council has that residents name, address, phone number and email contact on file so if the council is serious they should be able to do that pretty well instantly. 

The final paragraph says the council can’t have got anything wrong so it must be a resident who has ‘misunderstood’ or ‘misconstrued’ the council in some way, lets not be silly, getting the same response from the council time after time is not a mistake on our part! This is not a resident fault it is quite definitely a council fault!

If the council now wish to resolve these issues they should talk to the residents involved and not hide behind a poster. That is in the council’s hands, they have all the relevant information.

The council has a responsibility to deal with the issues raised, not abdicate when the going gets tight and pass them over to residents to deal with by way of a poster. We prepared the post below before we had sight of the poster, at this time we see no reason to alter the post.

4. Petition proposed by Parish Council

Because this is not yet an approved motion by the council we are addressing it off the top of our heads so please forgive any minor errors, we do not see the value in rereading the relevant legislation until there is a firm and approved motion by the council. In that event we shall look at it again in detail and respond appropriately. Also, we do not know what form any petition would take so we have covered a number of options in order of importance.

There was an option voiced that the council could start a petition and put it on their web site to see if,

1^st.  Residents wish to leave the council as it is,

2^nd. Merge it with another council or,

3^rd. Abolish Preston Parish Council.

Sounds suspiciously like a Governance review we put forward on this blog some time ago but at least they got the order right. We don’t know who came up with that suggestion but it sounds half baked to us, unclear and not thought out before being proposed. Would we want to leave such an important decision as this in the hands of our current Parish Council, probably not we’d most likely end up being merged with ‘Royston Vasey’, but at least most councillors would feel at home! This is not a step the council could take on their own by using their web site.

How effective could this strategy be?

1^st. If the outcome was to leave the council as it is, that could be used as a vote of confidence by the council, all the council would have to do is intimidate residents into fearing the unknown and a majority will most likely vote to stay as we are, even those who don’t agree with the council will probably vote that way in the hope that things may change in the future. That result wouldn’t affect us so we wouldn’t be going anywhere until we get answers.

2^nd. Merge Preston Parish council with some other parish council, which could be effective if Preston council were to be downsized and the right councillors left, we would be prepared to leave them in peace giving them the benefit of the doubt. We have no problem with the majority of Parish Councillors, if the influence of a few councillors were to be removed the remaining councillors would most likely be free to work in the best interests of residents and probably do a good job.

3^rd. If the council was abolished and transferred to the control of East Riding, that would be fully effective because the people who have caused this chaos would no longer be there because all councillor positions would have to be abolished as part of the process so they would be making sure everybody else went down with them, but that seems to be ok as far as they are concerned just so long as they don’t have to answer the questions!

Not quite the caring bunch of folks we are lead to believe they are, it could be disastrous for the Village but the councils opinion seems to be….what the hell, as long as we don’t have to answer to residents!

So if your using this option as a weapon to defeat this blog, the only way you can win is to eliminate yourself, doesn’t make any sense at all, but that’s precisely why it has the parish council written all over it. They think it’s a good plan even though its ill conceived, not thought through and self-defeating.

Governance Review.

For the size of population Preston has, any petition to the East Riding Council for such a review would require a minimum of 250 signatures (Governance Review requirement) from registered electors of the parish, considering attendance at council meetings and general interest in council affairs the chances of getting that many residents to sign up for it are slim to zero, at least not without very active campaigning.

The positive impact (for the council) would be that the council would be able to say we have a process taking place and we can’t answer any questions yet, we must wait for the outcome, that would probably ensure they survive until any election and would be able to step down without answering anything, tactically it could work, morally it’s a travesty.

The serious part is that the council is prepared to go to all that trouble, spend boat loads of our money on the process and risk so much of residents wellbeing and Preston’s identity just to avoid answering a few basic questions from a resident, something’s definitely not right, red flags should be raised in all our minds! What the hell are these people trying to hide! Everything points to the fact that there is something we are not meant to know and the council will keep it to themselves at any cost, even if it costs Preston it’s identity or destroys the Village. If there is nothing to hide or fear, answer the questions! The alternative is that the council has a personal vendetta against an individual resident and are discriminating against that resident!

Even though the council used the word “Petition” we have so far interpreted this as a ‘Governance Review’ because of the councils range of options (abolition of a Parish Council requires a legal process to take place and the end position needs to be resolved) and the fact that the council would be required to submit to East Riding a valid “petition” from residents to trigger a review. If the council were to petition for a review East Riding would be required to carry out the review, once it’s in the hands of ER it should take about 6 months.

If this is the councils intention they need to obtain credible and accurate advice because we believe (again, we haven’t read the legislation for a long time) the review is under the jurisdiction of the “Boundaries Commission” and if the council make mistakes in the preparation and detail it could go disastrously wrong for Preston as a village, very easily.

If a governance review is petitioned for we would push very hard for Preston South boundary to be included and possibly transferred to Hedon.

Parish Petition.

If the council is referring to a simple “petition’ of residents, this can be done quite easily and simply, all you need is (if our memories serve us well) 10 signatures from registered electors of the parish and your away, any group of residents can request a petition of the parish, it doesn’t need to be connected to the parish council in any way but the council we believe will be responsible for picking up the tab, that’s why we haven’t done it but, that position is due for review in the near future.

This route is also not entirely without its pitfalls, at the time the petition is submitted it is required to have the question(s) on the petition and from that point it is taken out of the “petitioners” hands and is conducted by East Riding Council but the results of the petition are not legally binding on either East Riding or the Parish Council, any outcome that wasn’t overwhelming could be another total waste of our money.

The point in favour of a simple Parish Petition is that it would need one simple question, “Should Preston Parish Council be required to answer questions posed by ‘Mrs A Resident”, with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.

An overwhelmingly positive response would place the council in an impossible position and although there is no legal requirement for the council to comply with the outcome any parish council who chose to ignore such heavy opinion from their electorate would be foolish in the extreme.

We would be happy if the council decided to follow this route, we have already discussed the option at length some months ago and had one of our team prepare an action plan to campaign for a positive outcome so our team is ready and waiting to go at short notice!

Private Petition.

However, if the council are thinking of their own private little number independently of East Riding and putting it on their own web site (as they state) we would then seriously have to reconsider our own position and most likely petition east riding to conduct the process.

Until the questions of dishonesty are fully satisfied there can be no confidence in Preston Parish Council conducting such a poll in an unbiased and honest manner!

There is a 4^th alternative, which the parish council don’t appear to have considered but we have and we are prepared to start that process depending on the parish councils actions.

The councils poster is unclear and confusing to residents who are understandably unfamiliar with Local Government Administration. Instead of mentioning only the most complicated type of ‘petition’ the council should have taken the time to explain the ‘range’ of petitions available to residents in a much more ‘user friendly’ manner, it is much easier for residents to organise a ‘Parish Petition’, a relatively simple and more controllable solution to residents disenchantment with the parish council then to get involved in the complexities of a ‘Governance Review’.

In our view the council poster has given a ‘knee jerk’ reaction to the situation that hasn’t been thought through and that demonstrates the councils lack of commitment to residents.

If there are any residents with similar experience of the council do please contact us by comment or email. If you wish to remain anonymous please use our email facility, 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.