Dear Sir,
Cllr John D. Clare’s letter last week has only a nodding acquaintance with the truth. Labour can’t bear to no longer be in absolute control of County or Town Council. He states “the ruling group had to call a meeting of Chairmen and Vice Chairmen because the officers were overloaded with work”.
Fact: The meeting was called not by the ruling group Independents and Liberal Democrats but by the Town Clerk with our complete support – Labour refused to attend.
The Town Clerk stated that there had been some ill feeling and poor conduct from some Councillors at meetings. He quoted Officers and Councillors to describe some of the recent behaviour in meetings. “intimidating”, “disrespectful”, “unprofessional”, “bullying”, “selfish”, “immature”, “aggressive”, “nasty”.
Officers were concerned at the length of some meetings ie: Environment & Recreation Committees till 11pm at night; Policy & Resources till 10pm. There had been a significant increase in the volume of questions and comments raised by [Labour] Councillors and the fact that a lot of the questions directed at Officers are not being raised in advance or outside of Council meetings. [Labour] Councillors challenging the integrity of officers over the accuracy of minutes.
Far from being constructive, Labour have been brutally aggressive, adversarial and intrusive. They have alienated staff and fellow Councillors alike. Indeed, as Chairman of Policy & Resources, things got so bad at one point, I had to state I would, if necessary, adjourn the meeting and ask the police to attend, to remove a Labour Councillor who was ignoring the chair, the committee members, staff and standing orders. Thankfully, the other Labour Councillors refused to back their disruptive colleague so things calmed down.
The Independents and Liberal Democrats have sought to be open, inclusive, consensus politics, no embarrassing U-turns, open to reasoning and debate.
One has to ask just who exactly is leading Labour on the Town Council. Cllr Clare’s rewriting of history would make George Orwell proud. I record Council meetings as a matter of routine, in accordance with ‘The Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014’, there is no dispute as to who said what and when. Incidentally, Cllr Clare’s complaint against me on the Waste Incinerator Planning Application was totally rejected by the Monitoring Officer. More valuable Council staff time wasted?
Cllr Arun M Chandran
Independent