The Annual Parish
Assembly is an event that the Parish Council has never understood and so has
never been able explain to residents. Consequently, it tends to degenerate into
an ersatz Council meeting and, as at proper Council meetings, few residents
turn up.
On this occasion, 16,
possibly 17, residents appeared. All but one or two came from Winchelsea. There
were none from Icklesham or Winchelsea Beach, reflecting the fundamental
problem of having a parish of separate and diverse villages.
Of those residents who
did turn up, 10 came along at my request to register their disquiet against a
Council proposal to borrow up to £100,000 and a Council decision to ignore the
results of their own consultation on the question of an early cut-off time for the
footlights in Winchelsea. But even with these reinforcements, residents were
outnumbered almost 2:1 by Councillors, officials, the two Clerks (why two?) and
those hapless souls who were persuaded to set up stalls to promote their
activities to residents (including two understandably very grumpy chaps from
Rother District Council).
The Assembly started
with the Chairman’s Annual Report. This was a recitation from a written speech.
It would difficult to describe either the content or the presentation as
riveting.
It was no surprise
that the speech failed to mention one of the major events affecting the Council
last year. This was the utter and complete dismissal by an appeals tribunal of
the accusations made to the Standards Board by councillors from Icklesham, Rye
Harbour and Winchelsea Beach (including the Chairman but orchestrated by Cllrs
Bronsdon, Merricks and Stanford) against the three Winchelsea ward councillors.
The judgement of the appeals tribunal was of national significance in that it demolished
an attempt by a posse of Icklesham Parish Councillors and Rother District
Council’s Standards Committee to restrict councillors’ freedom of speech and
suppress their right to conduct legitimate political activity. Apart from questioning
the competence of Rother, the judgement also made it clear that the complaints by
Icklesham Parish Councillors were vexatious and implicitly posed questions
about the complainants. They had alleged that the Winchelsea councillors had
made “untrue and misleading” statements. The tribunal said not. So, who was
untrue and misleading? It would have taken a big man to admit that he had been
so egregiously wrong but the Chairman did not.
It is also worth
noting that even Rother had dismissed most of the complaints made by Cllrs
Bronsdon, Merricks, Stanford et al. These ranged from being “very offensive” to
bullying and intimidation of councillors and the parish clerk (who denied this).
However, this little slice of history was airbrushed by the Chairman.
One puzzling part of
the evening was why there was a presentation by Rye Police about Community
Speed Watch. It was only in January that Icklesham Parish Council rejected the attempt by the former PCSO to extend the scheme to
Icklesham and Winchelsea Beach. At that meeting, Cllr Stanford claimed to
support Community Speed Watch but not community involvement, and Cllr Bronsdon
claimed to support Community Speed Watch but not the use of speed guns. In other words, they supported Community Speed Watch but not the community
or speed watch bits!
Cllr Horsman reiterated his fears that
volunteers would be assaulted but, when yet again confronted with overwhelming contrary
evidence, simply went into denial. Interestingly, his concern for the safety of
volunteers did not stop him originally asking if Winchelsea volunteers would agree
to do Speed Watch in Icklesham!
The one useful thing
that Rye Police could have done at the meeting would have been to introduce the
new PCSO for the Parish, Andrew Smith, but he remained an anonymous presence.
The high points of the
evening were the discussions of the Council’s decision to ignore the results of
a consultation on turning off the footlights in Winchelsea at midnight and its
proposal to borrow up to £100,000, on top of the £40,000 that they have already
borrowed.
On the question of
turning off the footlights at midnight, the background is that, in November
2011, Icklesham Parish Council sent out consultation forms to all households in
Winchelsea asking whether they would support, for economic and environmental
reasons, turning off the 17 footlights at midnight. The cost of fitting timers would be recouped
in less than 18 months and then there would be an annual saving of some £750 a
year (rising with electricity prices). Responses were received from 66
households (ie about 24% of the village). The result was 2:1 in favour of
turning off the lights at midnight. However, at a subsequent Council meeting, one
resident opposed to turning off the lights early attacked the consultation on
the grounds that it may have been fiddled because residents had been given the
option of returning their forms via ward councillors. The resident also argued that
the consultation was not valid because it did not ask whether residents wanted
more lights.
Councillors from other
wards joined in, complaining that the consultation forms had given too much
information to residents! The Chairman judged the rate of response to be too
low. The Council therefore decided to ignore the results of their own
consultation and bring the question to the Annual Parish Assembly.
When pressed about
this decision, the Chairman simply repeated the excuse that the turnout was too
low and that some residents were unhappy about the result. When he was asked
whether the Council had a policy setting a threshold on the level of responses
to consultations, he simply would not answer. He just kept repeating that the
response was judged too low and that some residents were unhappy with the
proposal. He continued in the same vein when it was pointed out to him that the
response to the Local Action Plan, on which the Council are basing much of
their spending, had responses from Icklesham , Rye Harbour and Winchelsea Beach
of less than half the response rate to the footlights question! Nor was the
Chairman any more forthcoming when the absurdity was highlighted of ignoring a
consultation of all households in favour of the Annual Parish Assembly
where less than a dozen residents usually turn up.
By the time the Chairman
was questioned on whether it was appropriate to ignore a clear vote in favour
of a proposal because the losers objected to the result, he was sinking fast
and proposed that the Council be asked to reconsider its decision to defer the
question back to the Annual Parish Assembly! It had to be pointed out that, as
the question had already come to the Assembly, this particular course of action
could not be reconsidered.
A vote was taken and
the result was 10:7 in favour of turning off the lights. At this point, I
requisitioned a Parish Poll in order to ensure that the Council could not again
ignore the balance of opinion among residents. Cllr Stanford complained that this would mean
that residents of other wards would have a vote on the Winchelsea lights ---
putting her figure on the problem of having a parish composed of four separate
villages. Cllr Bronsdon weighed in to express amazement that I was willing to
have the Council spend money on a matter of principle and, for the first of
many occasions during the evening, said how “sad” he was at my action.
The comic turn of the
evening was the suggestion from one resident that the saving from turning off
the lights early would be illusory because, without the lights, traffic signs
in Winchelsea would have be illuminated or replaced by expensive reflective
versions, and that the Strand Gate would have to be illuminated to stop cars
crashing into it in the dark! It was explained that the lights in Winchelsea
are footlights, designed to illuminate the pavement, not the road, so would not
affect traffic. It was also questioned as to why the Strand Gate would need to
be illuminated if the footlights were turned off early. There is currently no footlight
anywhere near the Strand Gate and cars do have headlights.
Eventually, the
Chairman agreed that the Council would be asked to accept the result of the
consultation and the vote at the Annual Parish Assembly. I therefore withdrew
the requisition for a Parish Poll on the understanding that, if the Council once
again tried to ignore the balance of opinion among residents, that I would
convene a special Parish Meeting and requisition a Parish Poll again.
And so to the question
of the Council’s proposal to borrow up to £100,000 in order to buy more
playground equipment. Icklesham Parish Council has already borrowed £40,000 in
order to make a grant towards the repair of Icklesham Memorial Hall. It is the
only parish council in Rother to have borrowed and one of the few in the county.
Another £100,000 would bring its debt ratio to a level higher than Italy,
Ireland and Iceland, and fairly close to that of Greece.
Cllr Stanford assured
everyone that the Council would be getting grants of at least £25,000. One can
have confidence that Cllr Warren and the Clerk will try, but Icklesham Parish
Council has never bothered with grants before (missing out on at least one
grant schemes for playgrounds) and would still add up to £75,000 to the council’s
debt.
It was suggested that
the annual borrowing cost of several thousand pounds a year was insignificant.
But add that to the £3,000 plus already being paid to service the previous
£40,000 borrowing and you start automatically taking out a significant chunk of
the annual budget.
I indicated that, in
view of the major impact of the proposed borrowing on Council finances, I believed
that residents should be consulted and so wished to call a Parish Poll. It was
claimed that residents had already been consulted and reference was made to an
article in the Icklesham newsletter. Unfortunately, this did not explain that
the cost or that the money was to be borrowed. Nor did it reveal how much tens
of thousands of pounds has already been spent on playground equipment.
At the mention of a
Parish Poll, Cllr Bronsdon again expressed his “sadness” and indulged himself
in accusations that I was proposing to blight local youth by refusing to buy
them extra playground equipment, missing the point that the question is how
this should be financed. But I did offer to withhold my request if the Parish
Council agreed to conduct a fair poll themselves. This will be discussed at the
next Council meeting.
