Icklesham Parish Council meeting, 9 January 2012

Winchelsea matters

County Cllr Glazier reported on the complaint received from Cllr Comotto and other residents of Winchelsea about the shanty town erected in the middle of Winchelsea by Southern Railway as part of the bus service replacing the train service while the Marshlink is closed. As usual, Cllr Glazier did not see what could be done. Cllr Comotto pointed out that East Sussex Highways Authority, which had issued the licence to Southern Railway to use the verge, felt that they had been misled. He asked that Highways therefore withdraw the licence. Cllr Glazier was not interested (as in most Winchelsea matters). However, the council agreed to write to Southern Railway to put forward the objections raised by residents.

After ten years, possibly longer, the council has finally appointed a contractor to clean bus shelters and benches! Actually, it appointed one last year but they were unable to do the job. The money for cleaning has been on the council's budget for more than 10 years but has never been spent.

The council finally agreed to take ownership from the Community Office of the four interpretation boards and two map boards in Winchelsea , while leaving the copyright with the Community Office. The council already insures and maintains the boards. Cllr Bronsdon was very unhappy about the copyright issue, muttering about "power and control".

The council rejected the attempt by the soon-to-depart PCSO to extend the Community Speed Watch to Icklesham and Winchelsea Beach. Cllrs Bronsdon, Stanford and Sutton were particularly hostile to the idea. Cllr Bronsdon was outraged by statements that Icklesham Parish Council did not support Community Speed Watch in Winchelsea. He was adamant that the council had always supported Community Speed Watch but not the use of speed guns, while Cllr Stanford said she supported Community Speed Watch but not the "community" bit. In other words, they support Community Speed Watch but not the Community or Speed Watch aspects! The chairman reiterated his fears that volunteers would be assaulted, ignoring the experience of Winchelsea and the rest of the country. Of course, in the past, he has been keen on Winchelsea volunteers coming to Icklesham, so it seems that his real objection is that he might have to do some work himself. Other councillors made it clear that they should not be called upon. In the end, however, there was not enough opposition to vote down the proposal and the decision was deferred until the Annual Parish Meeting.

Other wards

The council has received several complaints from residents of Winchelsea Beach about the lack of consultation about the decision to erect a row of bollards to keep vehicles off Harbour Field, which they thought were unsightly. This is the second set of complaints about lack of consultation by the council in Winchelsea Beach (the previous being about plans to erect a basket-ball hoop). The project had anyway come to grief because of the difficulty experienced by the contractor in fixing the bollards into the ground, which proved to be very stony and contains the foundations of Smeatons Harbour. The contractor also accidently severed a gas main, which was not on the plans of the gas company. Several residents attended the meeting to to ask for the restoration of a hedge. The clerk had the guts to admit that the bollards were the wrong option, given the nature of the ground, and the council had failed to consult residents directly affected. The council agreed to his proposal to switch to a hedge, protected pro tem by a stock fence.

Better consultation was pledged in the future. It will be interesting to see if future public consultations by the council come to much. When Winchelsea residents were consulted on turning off the footlights at midnight for financial and environmental reasons, although the response was 2:1 in favour and over 60 households responded, the decision was deferred for another consultation at the Annual Parish Meeting (where it will be easier for unrepresentative groups to influence the decision).

An illuminating debate broke out on proposals for Icklesham Recreation Ground. Cllr Warren has been organising consultations to decide what needs to be done. He believes public opinion is in favour of a childrens' play area. Cllr Merricks wants a hard surface, among other things, for hockey and badminton! Icklesham does not have and never has had a hockey team; and one supposes that badminton is still played indoors. One could have been forgiven for thinking that Cllr Merricks' agenda was to squeeze out the Icklesham Casuals football team. As in the past, she had a go at them for using the pitch in bad weather and only having one resident player (Cllr S Turner looked uneasy at this point, as he runs the Winchelsea Cricket Club, which also has only one resident player). No councillors did not seem worried by the fact that they are making plans for children with no knowledge of the number and age profile of the children for whom they are making plans!
A proposal has been made to buy high visibility vests for councillors to wear when they are out on council business and ID cards to prove who they are. The question was posed, where are councillors proposing to go that requires high visibility vests. The decision was deferred.

Two community noticeboards have been purchase at a cost of £280 [but see blog of 12 February] for Icklesham and Rye Habour. Readers will recall that a noticeboard to serve the isolated Tanyard Lane community in Winchelsea was rejected by the council.

The council now has an Asset Register. It should have had one years ago but only the current clerk has managed to produce one [but see blog of 12 February].

When the contract for grass cutting came up, one contractor quoted £4,646, some £2,900 cheaper than the nearest rival. Some councillors were suspicious and wanted to go for the next highest. All the firms quoting were confirmed as reputable. In the end, the council was persuaded to go for the cheapest quote. Those opposed fretted about the quality of service and wanted safeguards. But all the council has to do is ensure its contract is clear, inspect the work and withhold payment or repudiate the contract if performance is inadequate. Cllr Bronsdon continued to grumble about the anonymous system of tendering, even though it is laid down in council rules. Winchelsea costs just £203 to mow, just 4.4% of the total mowing budget. Icklesham costs £767 (16.5%), Winchelsea Beach £2,293 (49.4%) and Rye Harbour £1,382 (29.7%) .

Cllr Merricks proposed that the council spend £250 on registering the playing fields with the Queen Elizabeth II Fields Challenge in order to protect them in perpetuity. Cllr Bronsdon was unhappy with this on the grounds that it would stop them ever being built on! Other councillors were unconvinced that the protection offered was any greater than the covenants already on the fields. Further information is to be sought but it is not clear what else can be added to that already before the council.
The issue of rural superfast broadband came to the council. Cllrs P Turner and Warren had prepared rather good reports. It was a shame that many councillors appeared not to have read them. Councillors were asked, as individuals, to try to get residents to measure broadband speeds in their villages and pass the information, before the end of January, to East Sussex.

Disquiet over the conduct of council meetings

The meeting ran until 21:50, which meant it lasted 2 hours 35 minutes. This is becoming the norm. Best practice is that council meetings should last no longer than 2 hours, partly in order not to deter members of the public (remember how left-wing trade unionists in the 1970s used to stretch meetings out over hours in order to ensure that only militants would stay for important votes?).

There is some unhappiness about the duration of meetings but councillors seem inclined to blame the length of the agenda. However, the real reasons are weak chairmanship and the inability of councillors to work efficiently in plenary session.

The council does not follow the rules of debate set out in its own (recently re-issued) Standing Orders, which prescribe the order in which councillors should speak, the duration and rights of reply. Public questions are allowed to overrun, not least because, when several members of the public attend in order to support or object to a proposal, they are allowed to repeat themselves. One of the District Councillors is allowed to go on and on, even when it is plain that he has nothing new to say. Last night, the formal council meeting did not get going until 19:53. The chairman allows councillors unhappy with the outcome of a vote to re-open the debate after the vote has been taken: it is clear that some councillors try to change the sense of decisions. Last night, one councillor tried to substitute a different type of fence for the one agreed by the council. Another councillor insists on having the last word, even when the rules of debate leave that to the proposer of a resolution or amendment. And when that particular councillor feels she is losing the argument, she tries to talk over and down other councillors, as though she is trying to wear them down. Councillors are also allowed to open discussions on items put on the agenda for information only.

Another problem is that, although the clerk provides written reports, it is clear that some councillors do not read them and the council consequently wastes time going over what has already been explained.

A number of councillors simply cannot follow discussions. For example, last night, when councillors were asked to locate telephone cabinets in their villages as part of the rural broadband project, one councillor happily asserted that BT would provide that information if they were phoned and had done so to her husband. In fact, what BT had provided was download-upload speeds. Sometimes, the short attention span has serious consequences. Thus, the failure of a councillor to follow a budget discussion led to the council spending some £1,100 on recording equipment [but see blog of 12 February].

It is of course the job of the chairman to ensure that that the rules of debate are followed and that meetings run efficiently in other respects. He is patently not doing this.

RC