Comment reply, Lena.

Reply to comment, Lena (8^th February)

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident.

Hi Lena

Thanks for your patience. I’m probably not using the correct terminology by saying an ‘Active resolution’ but, during an ‘in camera session’ some months ago the council agreed they would not discuss any issues with me. My reading of that is councillor’s are not able to talk to me so I obviously am unable to talk direct to councillor’s. There is a 6 month rule whereby the council is unable to alter that agreement (resolution) within that period unless a majority of councillor’s have reason to request a change. I believe we are probably still within that 6 month period so that resolution is still ‘active’.

We normally take the grandkids to the Village Show, they like the usual kids stuff. Last year we were away so didn’t manage to get there so unfortunately we missed that particular event.

Our past experience with the council is that they took some drawings of the proposed New Community Hall to display at the village show, people passing were asked if they would like a new village hall along the lines of the drawings. Most people of course said yes, most people would, from that date the council considered it had carried out a full village consultation and the whole village agreed with them building a big new hall, with no documentation what-so-ever. The end result was a complete waste of our precept money and it wasn’t just a couple of quid!

I’m pleased to hear that I’m no longer ‘anonymous’ to you, so you have the advantage because you are still anonymous to me.

Lena, I have absolutely no disagreement with you when you say ‘people only have information regarding questions that are important to them’ and the reasons you give for supporting the park are admirable and a credit to you. I would support it for those same reasons with regard to our grandkids.

What is also important to me is that people are treated with a little respect and consideration, if the park is to place a financial burden on the village that amounts to a capital sum villagers should be asked for their views and not left out in the cold. If not and the project is to be self funding you can add our names to your list of supporters.

I have asked a few people who commented on this subject to let us have all the information relating to the park, hopefully they will do that and convince us.

As for questioning this councillors motives I would accept (for the sake of argument) it may have come across that way but it was not meant as an accusation of wrongdoing. Again our past experience with the previous administration is still raw and unfortunately that has an influence on our initial view. I am not defending anything or making excuses it’s just human nature and that will probably remain the case until remaining issues are resolved. 

We have always taken the view that should the council develop a programme of improvements for the village which would mean an increase in precept it would not be opposed by most people because we do need some improvements. What those improvements should be is a matter for debate and something we feel the council should have been addressing a couple of years ago, but to do that in an ‘ad hoc’ fashion is we believe the wrong way to do it.

The old council administration has never given residents any respect and therein lies the problem, new councillors appear to have simply continued that tradition. I have contacted councillors (in writing) many times to ask that outstanding issues be resolved, I have even written to the Vice Chairman (2011) reducing my grievances to 3 items that could easily have been resolved and I strongly indicated that I was prepared to move my position in order that resolution could be achieved. That was turned down it would appear the only satisfactory outcome for the council is my complete capitulation but my background could never allow that, so here I am today.

I fully accept the only way to break the impasse is dialog but dialog takes two parties. As for my posting negative things about the council I agree they are negative but at the same time unfortunately I also believe them to be true. I do not require or need respect of councillors that is entirely meaningless to me and has no currency at all.

Any credibility I have will disappear if I agree with you much more but I do agree that Preston is a lovely village and it is a nice place to live but I wouldn’t for one minute expect these posts to de-motivate councillors, in any case I do not post for the benefit of councillors.

Yes if we had a council that was much more open and transparent things would move forward much more quickly.

Thank you for your comment and best wishes.

Comment reply, Carol Osgerby.

Reply to comment, Carol Osgerby.

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident.

Hi Carol

Thanks for your comment and my apologies for any delay in responding. Forgive me if I’m mistaken but I seem to recall you attending the Preston Community Hall AGM in early 2011, if I’m correct you may recall a number of residents requesting representation on the charity as trustees. The Chairman of the trustees promised they would make enquiries into that issue and get back to us, they never did. I also seem to recall you offered your good services and advice as you are or were involved with charities in some form or other, as I recall they never accepted that offer.

Charities I’m afraid is about my worst subject, not that any of them are particularly good. One of my main sources of information on the subject is the Charities Commission website and as a layperson I tend to accept that as authoritative.

I do agree that the trustees are required by law to put the interests of the charity first and foremost and I do consider it creates a conflict with their role as councillors. Although that situation may not be ideal it is entirely permissible and therefore we have to work within those issues.

I do not consider it honest for the council to blame some legal restriction as a reason for not being able to update residents at any time. During public participation the council is out of session and members could therefore update us as trustees and not councillors.

You say The Community Hall Charity does have resident trustees in responsible positions, I certainly wasn’t aware of that although I do know residents form part of the Community Hall management committee, and indeed I believe a resident is Chairman of that committee.

Could I ask how you consider your understanding fits in with or opposes the posting you responded to?

Our intention is certainly not to create additional difficulties it is simply to understand the various positions and have better communication between trustees and residents. What I find most disappointing is that lack of information and communication between the two, I would have thought, possibly mistakenly, that a good starting point would be to contact the trustees to seek clarification, unfortunately they never respond.

With this being our weakest subject any information or advice you are able to give would be very welcome indeed and most valued.

Again thanks for taking the time to read our blog and for your comment.

Reply to comments Play Park.

Reply to comments, Play Park.

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident

Me

Firstly I would like to say, no comments have been removed from this blog, the comment referred to if you would like to read it, was removed by the author, I was the author and it actually read that a comment reply was on the main page. I then realised I hadn’t posted the reply so removed the comment.

All comments received by this blog will be published whether they agree or disagree with our view. You must realise that I have many other things to do so do not spend my entire life glued to this blog so if there has been any delay in moderating and publishing comments I apologise but can assure you all comments will be published with only one exception, abusive comments will not. To-date all comments have been published.

Lena A resident of Preston.

Lena’s first line mentions another blog who are selective in their publication of comments, they don’t like to publish anything controversial and I believe the list you refer to only lists Preston councillors for the North Ward. We have already reproduced that here in a previous posting, we listed our recent post as a reply to a comment requesting a list of all councillors.

We have never suggested this particular councillor somehow cheated the system, what we wrote were facts as far as I’m aware we did not try to interpret them. I have already dealt with this point in answer to ‘A resident’ (6^th February). You are quite right in so far as I do not give my name in postings though I am not quite anonymous, I’m sure all councillors know my identity as I’m sure you do.

You have put your comment on as ‘Lena A Preston resident’ apart from your friends or family or possibly parish council most people won’t know who you are. In which case you are more anonymous to me than I am to you. I am only anonymous to people outside our area so for you to suggest being anonymous is cowardly is unjust on your part and the use of the word is uncalled for, but we have still published it!

I entirely agree with you when you say ‘Perhaps if people collated the information they required containing ALL the facts first, they would not feel the need to be so Rude’. That sound a little like a consultation to me and as you will see from my recent reply to ‘A resident” I am fully in favour of that and would appreciate it if you could forward all the facts to me, there is an email address on the main page.

You make a point in stating that ‘at some point the people of Preston voted in favour of it’, I seem to have completely missed that vote because I was completely unaware of it, if you would be good enough to email all the details of that consultation and vote confirming the majority voted for it then I too will support you in your efforts.

I believe you could be right in saying that 19 people stood for election in 2011 but it was for 13 seats on the council not 10. I would like to respectfully differ with your assertion that I voted for all 10 (13?) candidates, there were a number that I voted for that didn’t make it onto the council, unfortunately, but I certainly didn’t vote for them all. If you are suggesting that all councillors were voted into office by residents of Preston I would not agree with that, 3 councillors were voted on by councillors alone. If you are suggesting that when any councillor who is elected or co-opted onto the council we no longer have any right to question their decisions or actions and they should be left to do as they please I would feel compelled to disagree with you.

Your last paragraph reads ‘I am not saying that everything is perfect, nothing ever is but i think people should look into things and talk to people in person before writing on a blog to insult somebody/people who obviously work very hard regardless of their own lives. Its nice to be nice.’

Again I agree with you entirely everything never is perfect but it would be nice if it was, we have never set out to insult anyone so if that has been occasioned we apologise but if we have simply misinterpreted something please talk to us and explain why.

You will see from the postings on this blog that I request information from the council on a reasonably regular basis and on a number of subjects, those requests for information are almost never responded to. I contact the council the way I do because the council have a active resolution that forbids councillors from talking to me I am therefore unable to talk directly to councillors so again, if you would like to email all your facts I would love to see them.

I’m sure your friend works very hard for the community and I admire that, I feel I also work hard for the community because I would like the council to be honest, open and transparent, neither is wrong.

If we are talking about the same person I am also aware that she has spent time and energy improving the Sports Pavilion and that certainly has my approval and thanks for a job well done.

Anonymous (7^th February)

I can assure you there is no intention of any personal attack on any councillor we are questioning the wisdom of a councillor’s actions given our past experience, nor have we suggested the councillor in question is doing anything wrong (presumably we’re talking about the same person).

We have our grand kids stay with us quite often (for a week or more) and I’m sure you will agree they are total bundles of energy, at least we have trouble keeping up with them. We’re fortunate in so far as being able to have them securely gated in and can let them play to their hearts content without the fear of them wondering off but that excess energy (to us that is) has to be burnt off and we often take the kids to a play park, often Burton Pidsea where there is a good play area and space for them to run and get rid of that energy. When we finally get them to bed, boy do they sleep, the fresh air helps as well!

It would be far more convenient for us to walk them down to Preston Playing Fields and let them get rid of all their energy there, less expensive too because we wouldn’t have to transport 5 of them around the country.

Our concern is a price tag of £144,000 and the burden on ratepayers should that materialise. We have already published a posting on the subject and one above, we are asking if a wider consultation is needed, without your people giving us that information we are not able to comment on that but I will say the same to you as I have said earlier. We are not against a play park, we personally would support one given the right circumstances but if there is to be a financial cost to ratepayers we think they should be asked for their view

If as the previous commenter stated, the people of Preston voted for it please send us that information and if it’s right we’ll support it too.

Me (7^th February)

Firstly I would like to repeat all comments are published, none are deleted.

This comment is anonymous apart from ‘Me’ but I suspect there may be a connection to the council here, forgive me if I’m wrong.

My personal dealings and experience with the council can only generate negative comments, one of the main reasons why we would like the council to be more open, transparent and honest, these are three things the council can’t be accused of and these are the three aspects we would like to change, if that changes, Preston will be vastly improved and a case for a Play Park would have been made very much easier. The reasons for the negative comments I would have thought are self evident from the postings but if you consider them to be wrong or unjust please comment and say why.

You say that you support the drive for a Play Park and ask what I am doing to help, the answer quite frankly is……nothing! But then I don’t recall anyone asking for my help so how would you expect me to help. In fact I didn’t know of the efforts to install a play park until I received your leaflet (having now found it I think it may have been in September 2012). I will say the same to you as I have said to some other recent comments on this subject. We are not against a play park, if it has good support we will support it too, we will also use it quite happily if we know its safe for our grandkids.

Would you like to supply us with your relevant information and then we will be able to make that decision.

In your last sentence you say ‘I hope this comment does not get deleted like a lot of the others made by residents’. After accusing us of unjustly commenting on the play park (which we have never criticised) you immediately accuse us for doing something that we do not do. If you would like to have a reasonable conversation on the subject of the Play Park our door is always open.

We actually get more emails than comments and I’m sure you would be surprised at how many of those are supportive of our efforts.

I hope this has answered your comments and thank you for reading our blog.

Comment reply, Why is just the council on the charities?

Comment reply, Why is just the council on the charities?

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident.

I really don’t know why there are just councillors on the charities. The charities were set up for the benefit of the residents of Preston, so I understand and I would therefore have thought it logical for residents to be represented as Trustees.

There are councillors currently sitting on the council that during 2010 and early 2011 asked the council that same question, we received the usual reply from the Council Chairman. ‘It would be illegal for the council to discuss the issue’ so were unable to comment at any time, this was obviously not the truth because the question was always asked during ‘Public Participation’. During that particular section of any council meeting there has to be a ‘suspension of standing orders’ that is to say, the council during that period is not officially sitting until after public participation when standing orders are re-instated and the council is once again in session.

We are looking at this with the benefit of hindsight because at the time we didn’t really understand all this council jargon or what it meant. Of course we do know now and with that hindsight we also know that we were mislead, because the council wasn’t in session during that period the council could have discussed any matter during public participation, that’s the purpose of it.  The council was consistently dishonest with us and refused to discuss the charity or the community hall. The then Chairman gave an assurance that during the charity AGM all questions would be answered, the council reneged on that promise at the very start of the AGM they again refused to discuss the community hall, at the community hall AGM, amazing!

The council have always quoted some mysterious legal provision that prevented them from talking to residents but have never been prepared to identify those provisions so we have never been able to confirm them. A recent post dealt with this item, I requested the council identify those provisions under a Freedom of Information request in October 2010, to date they have never responded!

I believe under charity law residents are able to play their part as trustees but are not allowed to outnumber managing trustees, councillors. Therefore there is no reason for residents not to have positions as trustees, it is simply that councillors prefer to keep all activity away from residents and operate in secrecy, what other reason can there be?

That secrecy is possibly because the council now have ‘Special dispensation’, to allocate public funds to the charity. Remember the Preston Community Hall Charity is a private organisation set up and operated by councillors, they are quite happy to use our money to set the charity up and again quite happy to use our money to keep it afloat and operating so they don’t suffer any financial loss themselves, but we’re not allowed to know anything about it. If that makes good sense to you that’s fine but to me it’s complete hogwash and to this day councillors are still lying to us!

Hope that answers your comment and thanks for reading.

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, list of councillors..

Comment reply, KG.

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident.

Councillors sitting on Preston Parish Council is a matter of public record, as mentioned in a previous posting those names can be found on the internet and should be available on the Parish Councils Website.

Whilst I do not intend to name councillors in postings I have listed their names here for your information along with their ward and when they joined the council, one I am unsure about so have left that date blank.

I do hope this helps and thank you for your comment.

List of Preston Parish Councillors.

Councillor                                                Date joined.                                    Ward.

J Clappison                                                <1999                                                North

G Bell                                                        <1999                                                South

P Fortnum                                                  <1999                                                North

B Mendham                                                  2003                                               South

N Hughes                                                                                                            South

J Weatherill                                                  2011                                                North

A Bullock                                                    2011                                                North

H Harrison                                                   2011                                                North

M Acey                                                        2011                                                North

M Masters                                                    2011                                                North

L Carmichael                                               2011                                                North

K Gilby                                                        2012                                                North

M Alford                                                      2012                                                North

Comment reply.

Comment reply

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident.

Reply to comments

Written for the Blog by a Preston resident.

Steve D.

If what I’m saying isn’t true Steve, I also hope someone will challenge it, the problem with that is…it is true. It’s not really a question of being fooled after all most people are out at work or bringing up families and generally leading busy life styles that usually requires their full attention and commitment.  Younger people are out with their friends or communicating with social media sites and are just as busy but in a different way.

The core councillors that I refer to have taken complete advantage of the busy lives of residents and used it to their own advantage. The few people who have attempted to communicate with the council are generally ignored but if they dare to pass that post they are intimidated and bullied, in the expectation that they won’t trouble the council again.

I can give you an example, on 10^th October 2012 I wrote to the council and requested information relating to the accounts of the Preston Playing Fields Charity (these are legally public documents), it is now 4 months later and there has been no sign of any acknowledgement or response. The council clearly wish to have no interference from a resident but when this kind of behaviour becomes the norm it does make you wonder what they are trying to hide! It’s abundantly clear that the council have no time for residents and wish to keep them in the dark as far and as long as possible…why? Again I will ask, what is the council trying to hide.

Under normal circumstances any mail received by the council during the month is read or given to the council or at least a synopsis of content is given for the benefit of any public attending the meeting. No such requests are ever mentioned during council meetings, the only people who are able to prevent that are the council leadership, Chairman and Vice. What do they have to hide?

The hands of new councillors are not by any means clean because they know of the difficulties with the ‘core councillors’ yet still take instruction from them and continue to follow their policy towards residents. It unfortunately suggests they do not have any idea of what to do and following the old crew at least lets them off the hook of having to come up with something. Would those councillors please resign and let us elect people who are able to act and come up with some ideas.

I reproduce the txt of the request below.

Dear Council

Re. Preston Playing Fields Charity

I would be grateful if you would forward to me information enabling me to access the above Charities accounts and, who should I contact with regard to obtaining copies of those accounts.

Regards

*** *****

Councillors are sole trustees on this charity as with the New Community Hall Charity, there is absolutely no flow of information from these councillor controlled bodies to residents, yet we paid to set them up councillors didn’t have to bear the cost. My request was made to the council, every councillor is a trustee on that charity yet they will not respond, not just to me...to anyone!

In the past I have written to the council for Charity information (remember all councillors are Trustees of the Charity) only to be told that they are unable to give any information because I have written to a councillor and must write to a trustee instead, but of course trustees are also councillors, I find the whole situation infantile and totally pointless, clearly frustrating and annoying, contrary to some councillors beliefs,it really isn't MI5!!

It has to be said that this is the charity a council member is currently using to promote a child play park near to her home, her occupation, a child minder! her address, close to the proposed play park? self interest? that just happens to be the history of Preston Parish Council, and it appears new councillors waste no time in learning those ropes so they can jump on the bandwagon! come up with anything for residents....they haven't a clue, total blanks!  If any family members have a business the council can be a source of income yet we are not allowed access to information, who prevents that access, councillors!

I am not at this point suggesting there is any thing untoward about such a cosy relationship that councillors appear to want to keep secret, I will return to this in the near future.

I do hope this goes some way to answering your comment Steve, thanks for reading.

Jennifer W. & Sheila M

You would both be very welcome, you are right in that we do need to join together to get rid of these councillors, to let these people continue to abuse residents as they have for so many years would be criminal but to get rid of them we need to act as a group.

I can assure you that if you chose to stand in any election we are very happy to work with you over a long period of time and cover the ins and outs of being a councillor, how the council works etc. It might be interesting to you to read our postings ‘Role of a council’ and ‘Role of a councillor’ from early January postings if you haven’t already done that. Before you stand you will be running at full speed and ready to play a full and active part in council without having to reply on the advice of current councillors.

If we support any councillor there will be a very obvious campaign to get them all elected throughout Preston and in the Press and against those councillors who to-date have proved themselves to be so ineffective. We will not be planning to lose!!!

Anonymous.

Hi anonymous, I believe I have answered you comment in recent posts in fact the post of yesterday ‘Council Achievements 1997 – 2011’ mentions what we consider to be a waste.

I hope that post answers your comment but if not do please get back to us and we shall endeavour to answer it fully.

Thanks for reading and for your comment.