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.

2ND REPLY TO JAN HUNTER.

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.

2^ND RESPONSE TO JAN HUNTER

POSTED BY KENNETH LYONS.

Hi Jan, Thank you for your comment, I’m pleased to hear you have an open mind. I agree one voice will get nowhere and I assume you are aware of why I am here and doing what I’m doing.

Basically we have 4 Parish Councillors who in my opinion gave false statements to the Standards Committee while it was investigating one of their number. Since doing so none of those Councillors have uttered another word on the subject, anything that has been said, has been said in private and behind the protection of closed Council doors. This can only be intended to deny me the right to defend myself.

Apart from the 4 councillors we have 5 other Councillors who gave honest statements and 3 members of the public gave statements, all of those statements support my case in some detail. The two sets of statements cannot both be truthful.

I have requested the text of all statements from East Riding Council, who have refused that request along with refusing to look into the matter further. As you will be aware a Parish Council does not come under the jurisdiction of the Local Government Ombudsman, so I have no redress in that direction. I can write to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to ask his Department to look into the matter and that is presently under consideration, I am currently researching the possible outcomes of that approach.

You mention “hard evidence”, the only hard evidence I have are the statements from witnesses, and at the moment I am being denied access to that evidence. East Riding quote legislation as the reason for their refusal, I have challenged their interpretation to no avail. I have subsequently submitted a complaint against East Riding Council to the Information Commissioners Office to have those statements released, I am currently awaiting the outcome. Should this approach fail my only access is to have them released by legal process and the only way I can do that is for the Councillors involved to call me a liar in public, and hopefully in writing, I can then instruct my legal advisors to apply for the statements on legal grounds (a provision for this is made in The Local Government Act 1972) and enter into the “Pre-Action Protocol for Defamation”. At the moment the press are reluctant to air this in print because of their concerns relating to the Law of Defamation, quite understandably.  Should I be in a position to take legal action that will change the position with regards to the Press.

I am already seen as a persistent complainer and I am very well aware of that, it’s a small price to pay in order to reach the truth. I agree with you again that 16,000 hits on this Blog go nowhere towards resolving the issue, but that figure will eventually reach 25,000 or 50,000 possibly even more. I will continue to press the issue until I have what I originally asked the Parish Council for, that is, an apology and an assurance that no other resident will be subjected to this kind of abuse in the future. It is my opinion that these type of people rely on their victims to either submit to their intimidation or quietly go away leaving them free to repeat their abuse on the next victim in the secure knowledge that their colleagues in Local Government will cover for them.

It would be futile to knock on doors to ask people to sign a petition on my behalf, not only because I am a relatively newcomer to the Village but because I feel sure those people not having been there to witness the incident will be unsure of the veracity of my position and would most likely therefore choose to “not get involved”, I put that down to “Village Politics’.

What I can say is that in my opinion, this matter does bring the Parish Council into disrepute and will further compound that disrepute the longer it continues, I am also aware of the approaching Local Elections. I do not accept that what I am doing causes that disrepute, Councillors who chose to be dishonest occasioned the disrepute, my actions are merely a consequence of their dishonesty.

The sad thing in all of this is the innocent people who suffer because of those dishonest Councillors. We have I believe 6 new Councillors who were elected in 2011 and the incident in question unfortunately happened on their first Council Meeting, their stewardship of the Parish has I believe been greatly hampered by this matter and any achievements and improvements they possibly could have introduced have been severely curtailed by the actions of those Councillors who are dishonest.

We have a Chairman who has been in her position since directly following the incident, her leadership has many questions attached to it because of this ongoing sore. However much I might sympathise with that position I can only respond to the Chairman’s inactivity in dealing with the issue.

My natural instinct is to talk about the issue and resolve it in an amenable manner, this regrettably has not been possible, I am therefore left with the only avenues open to me, my training over many years compels me to fight with whatever ammunition I have available to me and as dirty as my opponent chooses to make it. This matter will be resolved and I will receive an apology, if not from this Council it will be from the next Council or the one after that.  That position in my opinion can only put shame on our current Council.

I’m sure you will agree, this is a sad state of affairs and a reflection on Local Government as a whole and if our Local Government bodies disregard the legal provision’s placed upon them and they operate in a sloppy procedural fashion it can only reflect on the standard and quality of the service that is eventually delivered to members of the public.  

Thank you for you advice to “keep at it” and I’m pleased you will keep reading the posts, should I at any time go off on a rant please feel free to correct me. You have just prompted me to read a post earmarked for publication either tomorrow or Friday, I’ll apologise in advance but am prepared to go with the accuracy of the post.

Again thank you for your comments Jan, its been a pleasure responding to you, and thank you for reading.

Should you wish to contact me privately I can be reached at prestonparishcouncilproblems@gmail.com

Kind regards

KL

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. POST 3.

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.

UNLAWFUL COUNCIL MEETINGS. POST 3.

POSTED BY KENNETH LYONS.

WHY WE BELIEVE THE 10^TH OCTOBER COUNCIL MEETING TO HAVE BEEN ILLEGAL

We had taken note of when the Council posted its Notice and Agenda for upcoming Council meetings for some months, just to be sure we were in fact correct that the Council was failing to give the required 3 days minimum notice and to confirm it wasn’t simply a ‘one off’.

Photographs were taken of the Parish Notice Board in Preston North during the evening of Friday 5^th October  (Notice had to be posted before midnight on friday 5th October) and again shortly after midnight on Saturday 6^th October, those photographs are date and time stamped. We know that time and date stamps can be manipulated so in order to avoid an accusation of dishonesty, we waited until the first editions of the newspapers were available later on the Saturday morning.

We purchased a Saturday edition of the Daily Mirror at approx 6:15am on Saturday 6^th October. When we returned to the Preston Parish Notice Board there was still no agenda and notice of the Council meeting posted. We took photographs of the Parish Notice Board with the Saturday newspaper clearly visible showing that at that time the Notice of Meeting had not yet been posted. The photographs shown were taken at 06:30am, 07:56 and 08:44am further photographs were taken showing the Notice had not been posted up to that point. We returned to the Notice Board at approx. 10:05am the same morning to find the Notice had by then been posted.

My understanding is that the National Newspapers are finalised and printed overnight and the Saturday Edition is certainly not available for purchase the day before its printed. So we can be certain the Notice of Meeting was not posted before midnight on Friday, it was posted between 08:44am and 10:05 am on Saturday 06^th October 2012. The day the notice is posted cannot be counted as part of the minimum 3 days notice giving only 2 clear days Notice of the meeting, Monday and Tuesday.

This isn’t missing the deadline by just a few minutes because of traffic it represents a blatant disregard to the legal processes and procedures the Parish Council is required to abide by.

Saturday morning edition of the Daily Mirror used in photographs, dated Saturday 06^th October 2012. The paper was purchased at 06:15am from the Newsagents in Hedon.

At the time the Photographs were taken, in the early hours of 6^th October 2012 the Notice Board contained the following posters.

Right hand side.

1.  Preston Community Hall.

2.  List of Councillors for North and South Preston.

3.  Vacancy for a councillor.

4.  Notice of Audit and Annual Return.

Left hand side.

1.  Neighbourhood team of Police Officers.

2.  Family information and fun days.

3. Preston Walkers.

When the Notice of Meeting was eventually posted it was posted in the lower right hand side, replacing or covering the notice of a vacancy for a Parish Councillor, next to the Audit and Annual Return Notice and below the list of Parish Councillors.

The newspaper mounted on top of the Parish Notice Board showing the Notice of Agenda and Meeting had not yet been posted. Taken at 06:28:40am on Saturday 6^th October 2012. 

Photo taken at 07:56:41am Saturday 6^th October 2012. Still no ‘Notice’.

Photograph taken at 08:44:26. Still no Notice of Council Meeting.

 Parish Notice Board with Notice of Meeting posted in the right lower corner of the Notice Board, taken on Saturday 6^th October 2012 at 10:04:39. The Notice has either replaced or is covering the notice of ‘Vacancy for a Councillor’.

This process was followed for some months prior to October 2012, after we realised what was in fact taking place. Without some degree of prove the Council would simply have lied and denied it and started to post the Notices in time and no one would have been any the wiser.

Its abundantly clear to us that the 10^th October 2012 Council Meeting was indeed illegal, the council therefore had no legal authority to conduct any Council business let alone co-opt a new Councillor. This was not the first or only time co-options have taken place during unlawfully convened Council Meetings.

It is not acceptable for the Council to constantly react to residents and correct the faults in procedure only when residents find them out.  This situation was brought to the Councils attention in October 2012 and the Council now post the Notice of Council meeting giving the required notice. If it hadn’t been brought to the Council’s attention the practice would still be continuing to day and with another co-option in the making we could easily have 3 or 4 members of the public sitting as Parish Councillors.

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.

3rd. 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.

3RD REPLY TO KIETH G, HULL.

I’m getting the impression you’re a professional commenter Keith and I must say your comments are very welcome, though I need to be just a little careful how I respond to this comment. We are all very pleased and thank you for the kind words on your previous comment.

I learned a long time ago not to trust Preston Parish Council and if you wanted to challenge them you have to have proof of what transpired. I think your correct a voice or video recording would clinch it, I also agree the council would never give its permission for any recording.

I can say that with confidence because the Parish Council recently banned a councillor from making notes on an ipad, they were concerned the meeting was being recorded. Whether or not that councillor still uses an ipad or not, I don’t know.

When you say “it probably wouldn’t do any good anyway” I can only assume you are talking about any recording that was done ‘covertly’.

If so, can I respectfully suggest you are incorrect on that particular point. To record a Parish Council meeting covertly is not illegal, it is after all a public meeting, though such a body as a District Council may not entertain a recording gathered by such means, that does not apply to a Court of Law.

Such a recording would be admissible as evidence in a Court of Law, in fact if a Judge was made aware that such a recording existed and it was pertinent to the case being heard the Judge could and would almost certainly compel you to make that evidence available to the Court, you would have no choice but to comply.

I’ll stop there Keith and hope this answers your comment but if you would like further information regarding the recording of Parish Council meetings, please e-mail me.

Thanks for your good wishes.

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 MEETING ON 10TH OCTOBER 2012.

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.

POSTED BY KENNETH LYONS.

This post has been split into 3 parts,

1.  Legal requirements on Parish Councils and Legal references.

2.  The potential consequences to the Parish and Residents.

3.  Why we believe the 10^th October 2012 Council meeting to have been unlawful.

Post 1.  LEGAL REQUIREMENTS ON A PARISH COUNCIL AND LEGAL REFERENCES

By law, a Parish Council is required to abide by certain legal requirements. Regulations governing how Parish Councils operate and the procedures they must observe and follow are contained in many Acts of Parliament and delegated legislation.

The main items for convening a legal Parish Council meeting are contained in The Local Government Act 1972 (LGA 1972). We will outline those requirements as listed in the regulation so anyone who wishes to confirm or challenge our opinion is able to.

An official Council meeting cannot be legally convened if the Council has failed to observe the provisions of the LGA 1972. If any Council fails to observe the legal requirements, any Council meeting it may hold is not a Council meeting and consequently that meeting would have no legal authority to conduct any Council business, any business such a meeting did consider would be null-and-void. 

LEGAL REFERENCES

Lawfully convened Parish Council Meetings.

The legal provisions under The Local Government Act 1972 and other legislation are very specific.

In order for a Parish Council Meeting to be lawful and legally authorised to conduct Council business and commit to binding decisions and resolutions following Council discussions, the council must adhere to certain legally prescribed prerequisite actions, these include:

1.  (LGA 1972, Sch 12, paras 10(2)(a) and 26(2)(a). At least three clear days notice, not including the day of issue, Sunday or the day of the meeting, before a meeting of the council a notice of the time and place of the meeting must be affixed in some conspicuous place in the locality, (in the Case of Preston, this would be the village notice board)

2.  (Case Law, Longfield Parish Council v Wright). A council must Specify on such notice all items of business proposed to be transacted at the meeting, a council cannot lawfully decide any matter which is not specified in the summons (Agenda).

3.  (LGA 1972, Sch 12, paras 10(2)(b) and 26(2)(b). A summons to attend the meeting, must specify all the business proposed to be transacted at the meeting and signed by the proper officer of the council, shall be delivered by hand or sent by post to the usual place of residence of every member of the council.

4.  (LGA 1972 Part 2s10(2)). Legal definition of 3 clear days. The day on which the notice was issued or posted, the day of the meeting, a Sunday, a day of the Christmas break or a bank holiday or a day appointed for public thanks giving or mourning shall not count towards the 3 clear days.

Why does the law require Parish Council’s to give 3 clear days notice to the public? It is to enable the public to be aware of the business that is to be transacted during that Council meeting and, it allows members of the public to research any item on the agenda they might have an interest in before the meeting is convened. In order that members of the public have sufficient time to research any item the law requires all Parish Councils to give at least 3 clear days notice.

Until recently and at the time of the Parish Council meeting in question, the Parish Council held its Council Meeting on the second Wednesday of each month except August.

Bearing in mind the day the Notice is posted, any Sunday and the day of the meeting cannot be counted as part of the 3 clear days notice. If over the weekend a Parish Council decided to have a Council Meeting on the coming Wednesday it would presumably post a Notice on the Monday. As Monday (the day the notice was posted) and Wednesday (the day of the meeting) cannot be counted, that leaves 1 clear days notice (Tuesday). Therefore the Council could not legally hold a meeting on that Wednesday, it would have to cancel that meeting and rearrange it following 3 clear days notice. If the Council posted the Notice on Monday the earliest a Council Meeting could be legally convened would be Friday of the same week because the Council would have given the required 3 clear days notice, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

There are times when human fallibility plays its part and for whatever reason be it forgetfulness or family crisis, if 3 clear days notice is not given, the Council meeting must be cancelled, whatever the inconvenience and rearranged following the required 3 clear days notice.

In the case of Preston Parish Council, failing to give 3 clear days notice was not the result of an oversight, it was normal practice. This had been done many, many times over the foregoing months and years.

A Parish Council meeting was held on 10^th October 2012, at this Council meeting a new councillor was co-opted onto the Council, we have no intention of naming the co-opted Councillor because that councillor is an innocent victim of the Parish Council’s sloppy procedural control.

The 10^th October was as normal the second Wednesday in the month and for a legally convened Council meeting to be held on that day the Council was required to give 3 clear days notice. This meant the notice had to be posted before midnight on Friday 5^th October, which would have given 3 clear days notice, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday.

As we will show later the Council actually posted the notice of that meeting on Saturday 6^th October 2012, it wasn’t simply a traffic delay, which meant the deadline was missed by a few minutes or so, it was posted almost half way through the day.

Under those circumstances the Council meeting of 10^th October was required to be cancelled, and rearranged for Thursday 11^th October at the earliest.

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.

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.

RESPONSE TO KEITH G, HULL.

Thank you for your comment Keith and thank you for reading.

We believe Keith’s comment is related to Mr. Lyons recent posts and we have therefore ask Mr. Lyons to respond as he is familiar with the actual events of the meeting in question.

Mr. Lyons writes,

Councillor Clappison was present and Chairing the meeting at the time of the incident in question. Although I can tell you the events that led up to Councillor Bell’s outburst, I am unfortunately unable to explain the reason for his outburst.

 If you would care to look on Preston Parish Council’s Website you will see that the first item of business was ‘Public Participation’.

Councillor Mendham (who was still a member of the public at that point) asked a question of the Chair with regard to the cost of the recent investigation carried out by the Audit Commission following a complaint by a member of the public.

The Chairman quite rightly answered her query and informed the Council and public gallery the Audit had cost the Parish purse approximately £8,750. The Chairman then went on to explain that the Audit Commission had given the Parish Council a clean bill of health in respect of the supply of information to members of the public under the provisions of the FoIA.

It was at this point that I felt compelled to respond because the latter part of the Chairman’s answer was, in my opinion, at best misleading. I was pointing out that the Financial Regulations are quite separate from the Information Regulations and it would not have been appropriate for the Auditor to comment on the Councils performance with regard to the provision of information under FoIA, any more than it would be appropriate for the Information Commissioners Office to comment on the Council’s performance in relation to Financial matters. Therefore in my view no such conversation took place, on later reading the Auditors report it made no such references and therefore my view prevailed.

This is the point when Councillor Bell intervened.

The Chairman’s role during council meetings is to ensure that the proceedings run smoothly, all business wherever possible is concluded and the legal provisions are observed, along with the Code of Conduct relating to the behaviour of Council members.

So we have Cllr. Mendham kicking off the proceedings, Cllr. Bell intervening very aggressively, Cllr. Clappison failing to bring the meeting to order and allowing the incident to run it’s course while Cllr. Fortnum eventually had to take control of Cllr. Bell in order to calm him down. Those 4 names should be sounding familiar by now.

It is my personal and honest opinion the incident was engineered and the aggression was to be directed at the person who requested the costly audit to be carried out. That person was not present at the meeting but the plan, I believe, was in motion by then and had to run its course. When I criticised the comments of the Chairman I became the primary target.

It seems a little strange that the same names are unable to remember any of the events in which they played such a crucial and critical role. It’s the same people whose accounts are at odds with everyone else’s, in my opinion that appears to be more than a little coincidental.

In my opinion from the evidence that I have seen in the form of witness statements supplied to me by the Investigating Officer for the Standards Committee, Councillor Bell put forward 2 defences,

1.    His primary defence and the one covered in previous posts was that he played no such role as that indicated by the complainant and was passive throughout and therefore he had done nothing that needed defending.

2.    But just in case and as a back up to his first defence he listed a defence of putting his behaviour down to a reaction to a letter I had written to the Council in January 2011 in which I suggested the Council had lied.

In my honest opinion there is absolutely no necessity for a second fail safe defence if the first defence is accurate and truthful because there would not have been any adverse behaviour to defend!

To save any comment asking why I had suggested the Council had lied and was I right to do so, here are my reasons,

As members of the public and during 2010 a number of residents including myself had asked if the Council Meetings could be held at the Community Hall on Main Street, Preston for a variety of reasons not least of all to enable more elderly residents being in a position to attend should they wish to. We were emphatically told during a number of Council Meetings that it was not possible because there were regulations in place that prohibited such meetings in the Community Hall, especially Charity Regulations. Despite repeatedly requesting the Parish Council to identify the legislation they were referring to, they refused. As residents we could not locate any legislation that supported the Parish Councils opinion.

I am and was at the time in possession of a letter from the Charities Commission to Preston Parish Council dated 2007 that, clearly states that the Charities Commission has no objection to the Parish Council holding meetings in the Community Hall and having a Council Office at the Community Hall providing, the Community Hall Charity was in receipt of payment in cash or kind.

That letter made it very clear to me that the Council statements on the matter were misleading and untruthful, where do the Council hold their meetings today, the Community Hall, where is the Parish Council Office, behind the Community Hall. As appears to be normal, the Parish Council’s view has not been supported and we as residents were correct in our view once again.

If Cllr. Bell had actually reacted to my letter why did he conjure it up for this particular meeting when he had every opportunity to ‘react’ during the previous 4 months? I did after all attend all Council meetings at that time.

Leaving this incident aside, it would in my opinion be extremely poor judgment for anyone to defend himself or herself against an accusation of having been dishonest, by being dishonest.

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.