Icklesham Parish Council meeting 12 November 2012

A bumper turnout:  10 members of the public. However, several were there to ask the council to write in protest to East Sussex against the proposed downgrading of the Ridge Fire Station. Two others came on behalf of the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve about the Rye Harbour car park. There was also County Councillor Keith Glazier (‘see no evil’), District Councillor Nick Ramus (‘hear no evil’) and District Council Paul Osborn (‘speak no evil’) plus Malcolm Johnson from the District Council trying to offload the Rye Harbour car park and public toilets onto the parish council.
Rother has cut the grant it was making to Icklesham PC for a traffic gateway at Rye Harbour from £737 to £370. Cllr Osbourn claimed the credit for getting even this grant but Cllr Bronsdon was keen to award the credit to the Deputy Clerk (now that reminds me of an interesting story).
The council has secured its first serious grants, £23,000 and £5,000, toward the new £55,000 Icklesham playground. The council had previously been contemplating borrowing up to £100,000 to fund this and other playground projects. The first grant was the work of the departing clerk and the second was down to Cllr Warren.

The resignation of the Parish Clerk

This was the elephant in the room. Steve Foreman, clerk since 2011 has resigned. Nothing at all was said at the meeting but there was a certain tension in the room, as though certain councillors were anxious that someone would raise the issue.
Steve is the fourth clerk lost by Icklesham PC in six years. The reasons for Steve’s resignation will be the subject of a forthcomng blog. Suffice it to say for the moment that Steve, who retired from the Audit Commission before becoming clerk, proved himself to be exceptionally energetic and efficient. He has also been very conscious of proper procedure and the need for impartiality. This has not endeared him to certain councillors and he has been subject to unfair and improper criticism. His position has also been undermined by the inevitable failure of the chairman, Jim Horsman, to do his duty.
Cllr Stanford could not resist an opportunity to take a pointless pop at Steve over his report on discussions about the Rye Harbour car park and toilets, where he had referred to representatives of the residents. Cllr Stanford was keen to stress that the persons concerned had not attended at representatives. Thus a molehill became a mountain.

Parish bus service

This expensive and ill-conceived experiment has been canned, not by the council, but by Rye Community Transport, who became depressed at the low rate of use. The highest number of users was 42, in June. In October, just two people made use of the service. Of the 100 under-16s projected to use the service in the first five months, only four did so.
The last two passengers cost their fellow council tax-payers £311 each! But what is even startling is the fact that even if usage had hit the parish council’s target of 60 per month, it would still have cost council tax-payers £9.42 per person. It would have been cheaper to hire separate taxis for each person!
The report by Rye Community Transport makes for sober reading. It accuses Icklesham Parish Council of not properly researching the demand for a bus service and queries the value of the survey carried out by the Rother Voluntary Association. A sharp contrast was drawn with the way that RCT develops new services. Unfortunately, lack of solid research underlies virtually all Icklesham projects. The vast expenditure on new playgrounds has gone forward despite a complete lack of knowledge of the number and age of children in the parish.

Parish Office

The council is still determined to inflate its overheads by opening an office and appears to have approved the idea in principal. The latest suggestion is the sports pavilion at Icklesham, which the Icklesham Trust wishes to rebuild. This is rather more salubrious that the previous suggestion, which was the public toilets in Winchelsea, should they be rebuilt. Some councillors also see the pavilion at Icklesham as a way for the parish council to inject some money into that project but there may be some reluctance in the Icklesham Trust to have the council so intimately involved. However, the council’s proposal may anyway be derailed if Cllr (Peter) Turner persists in his suggestion that, if there is a parish office in the pavilion, the toilets should be open to the public. Cllr Warren doubted that Icklesham Trust would be happy with the idea. What is it about the parish office and toilets?
One cannot help but get the impression that this is just another chance for Icklesham Parish Council to waste more tax-payers’ money. Very few parishes have parish offices: why Icklesham? No good reasons have been put forward. Indeed, the idea has never been properly discussed. A parish office in Icklesham would simply serve Icklesham. How many residents are likely to travel the three miles from Rye Harbour, or even bother to come up from Winchelsea Beach or travel from Winchelsea? Most people will continue to phone or e-mail, if they need to contact the clerk (and few bother to even do that).
Something to watch if a parish office is opened: will the clerk(s) continue to receive the unusual perk of being paid to travel to work?

Rye Harbour car park
Rother want to shift financial responsibility for the car park at Rye Harbour (and possibly the public toilets) to the parish council. There is of course a basic economic flaw in the whole proposition. Offering the car park to the parish suggests that, either Rother is admitting that it is so incompetent that even Icklesham PC could do better (remember, this parish council felt that locking of the gates to the Pear Tree Marsh allotments was beyond it) or is Rother just trying to shift the cost from their budget to that of the parish because the latter is not subject to capping.
Parish councillors recognised that, if the council took over the car park, they would have to charge for parking, but no one raised the associated cost of ticket machines and employing staff to service the machines and enforce parking charges or also installing barriers. As Rother would also have to start charging if they were to retain control of the car park, why should Icklesham Parish Council get involved? All they will get is the flak.
Then, there are the public toilets. These cost about £20,000 a year to run and, sometime during the 99-year lease, will have to be rebuilt.
Rother have floated the idea of covering losses for the first few years on a sliding scale (eg 100% of year 1 reducing to 0% by year 5 or 10), but no mention has been made of the capital costs of installing parking infrastructure. Nevertheless, the Council agreed to the idea in principle.
A Rye Harbour resident in attendance expressed her concern about car park charges leading to parking congestion along the streets of the village. She asked for residents to be involved in any discussions, which does not suggest much faith in the representation provided by Rye Harbour councillors. But then Cllr Bronsdon of Rye Harbour believes he does not need to consult, on the grounds that, if voters don’t like what he decides, they can vote him out at the next election. There would be some logic in that, except that Rye Harbour rarely has contested elections in Rye Harbour, in part, because no resident can be bothered to stand (Cllr Bronsdon lives in Rye and Cllr Stanford in Winchelsea Beach).

Parish post boxes

Readers will recall that, during the debate over turning off the footlights in Winchelsea, a resident and member of the former corporation in Winchelsea, Mr John Spencer, questioned the integrity of Winchelsea ward councillors by implying that they would tamper with survey questionnaires (the first of the three ballots) given to them by residents to return to the council. Mr Spencer later accused Cllr Comotto of submitting a questionnaire on behalf of his under-age daughter and tried to see how other residents had voted by making a Freedom of Information request to see everyone else’s questionnaire. Cllr Stanford proposed that, because some residents (ie Mr Spencer) did not want to communicate with the council via their elected councillors, the council should set up post boxes in each ward. £400 was budgeted. The cost has turned out to be £160 per post box. Another well researched project!
Even Icklesham Parish councillors baulked at £640. The idea then rapidly unravelled. Councillors came to the conclusion post boxes were impractical. Where would they be installed, who would empty them, how often and so on? In the end, it was decided to place a box, which will be made by a councillor at no charge, inside Rye Harbour Stores to see if anyone uses it. That still means that £400 has been taken from tax-payers because councillors did not bother to think through another silly idea!
The council also missed a point of principle here. Although Mr Spencer apparently does not like the representatives who were elected to represent Winchelsea, even his personal friend and fellow jurat Cllr Turner, why should the council help him to circumvent his properly-elected representatives? Does any other elected body make special provision for voters who don’t like their elected representatives?
Cllr Stanford’s proposal for parish post boxes also begs the question as to why unhappy residents cannot phone, e-mail or send a letter to the clerk. Cllr Stanford said the post is too expensive and, of course, not everyone has e-mail. But is there someone out there who does not have a phone or e-mail, cannot afford a postage stamp, and dislikes all their elected councillors? Surely, it would have been cheaper for the council to buy Mr Spencer a book of stamps?

And yet more money wasted

Another £500 of council tax has been poured down holes in Smeatons Lane.
The council went ahead and spent £540 on allotment software (support and maintenance costs will be extra). There is a problem apparently with continuing to run a spreadsheet for some 50-60 plots.
At the insistence of Cllr Merricks, the council registered its playgrounds as part of the ‘Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Fields’, in order to stop itself building on them in the future. This is an utter waste of money. The clerk advised the council that it was unnecessary, because sufficient safeguards are already provided by the restrictive covenants on these pieces of land but he was over-ruled. No other parish in Rother has registered its playgrounds. Moreover, the council took the decision to go ahead without finding out the cost. Their decision was therefore illegal. Now, the council has discovered that its titles to Icklesham Recreation Ground and Harbour Field at Winchelsea Beach have not been registered at the Land Registry and it cannot find its deeds of ownership. Curiously, Cllr P Turner was supposed to have sorted all these out when he was chairman over 10 years ago.
The council has budgeted £2,000 to ‘refresh’ its Local Action Plan. Can £2,000 bring back something from dead? The LAP achieved response in most wards which were lower than the turnout in the election of Police and Crime Commissioners! It was of course also the cause of the complaint to Rother Standards Committee by other councillors against Winchelsea ward councillors, which the latter won earlier this year, when an appeals tribunal overturned Rother’s flawed judgement and dismissed the accusations.
On 26 November, the council will hold a special meeting to consider its budget for 2013/14. There is a question mark over the legitimacy of the meeting. Expect more whacky ideas on how to spend your money.

Cllr Sutton

The council wasted more time on a proposal by Cllr Sutton that the council should employ a maintenance man for a day a week to do small jobs around the parish at the bidding of individual councillors. The council already employs a maintenance man to do small jobs, although only as and when he is needed, and under the direction of the clerk. It is illegal for work to be commissioned by individual councillors, but why should the long-serving Cllr Sutton (proud alumni of Winchelsea primary school) know that? The reason why certain jobs in Winchelsea Beach appear not to be getting done is because Cllr Sutton does not report them to the clerk.
Ironically, Cllr Sutton is one of the reasons why councillors are no longer required to conduct monthly inspections of their ward --- a perfection occasion to report faults --- having admitted, after several years, that he did not know what he was supposed to be doing and that he therefore did not bother. This item should not have come onto the agenda.

Planning

Cllr Ramus welcomed a letter from Winchelsea Heritage expressing concern about planning enforcement at Rother, which is apparently a matter of growing concern on the Planning Committee.

Youth Club

One positive piece of news. Cllr Lyward has her youth club up and running in Winchelsea Beach. However, the skate park may have been put back on the agenda by the meeting to set up the club.

Postscript

Cllrs Austen and Chishick said nothing throughout the meeting, but Cllr Chishick had the excuse that he was abroad. Cllr Moore managed one contribution.

RC

That footlight poll again!

The following article appeared in the Members' Bulletin produced at Rother District Council.

"Icklesham Parish Council has been considering if it should turn off footway lights in Winchelsea from 12 midnight to 5.30am for some time now. If this were to be done it would save energy costs and reduce the Parish Council's carbon footprint. But opinion varies as to whether the saving was outweighed by possible safety and security issues.

"Even the 'experts' the Parish Council consulted were not sure if this would have any impact on crime and personal safety. A survey carried out in 2011 was considered inconclusive so the Parish Council decided to conduct its own poll to find out, hopefully, more clearly what residents wanted. A few residents were proposing to call for a formal parish poll so the decision was made by the Parish Council to conduct its own 'local poll' based on the principles of a formal parish poll.

"The poll was arranged for 30 August 2012 and Rother District Council helped by providing a ballot box and set of polling booths. A flyer was delivered by the Parish Clerk to every home in the Ward of Winchelsea giving details of the poll and encouraging people to vote. Notices were also posted up and two weeks clear notice was given before the poll was conducted. In line with a formal parish poll only those registered to vote in a local election were asked to express an opinion.

"The poll was held from 4pm to 9pm at the Court Hall, Winchelsea, which again is similar to the times used for a formal parish poll with the Clerk and Deputy Clerk presiding over proceedings. 113 of the 401 registered electors turned out to vote (28% turnout) and, of those voting, 63 said they did not want the footway lights turned off. Given the result, the Parish Council has decided it will not turn the lights off and the matter has now been finally settled."

As readers of this blog will realise, there is a great deal of spin here (to put it politely).

1   The parish council consulted no "experts". The local police were asked but they are not experts (thus, their equivocal answer).
 

2   The article says, "A survey carried out in 2011 was considered inconclusive so the Parish Council decided to conduct its own poll to find out, hopefully, more clearly what residents wanted." The implication is that the survey was some casual exercise conducted by a body other than the parish council. But it was entirely a parish council exercise. In this survey, there was a clear majority in favouring of turning off the footlights but the result by the council because those who lost were "unhappy" with the result (to quote the chairman of the council), criticism of the conduct of the exercise, defamatory claims by Jurat John Spencer that Cllr Comotto had entered a vote by his underage daughter and because it was claimed that a turnout of 24% too low. The turnout in the latest poll was announced as 28%. But, as the parish council could not confirm who was a registered voter, it asked voters to confirm that they were, and only 26% did so. But 28% or 26% is insignificantly different from 24%. After the 2011 survey, the council deferred the matter to the Annual Parish Assembly. This voted to turnout the lights, but the council decided to go for a third ballot.

3 The third ballot has been heavily criticised for giving only two weeks notice, being held in the August holiday period, not being able to confirm that voters were eligible, excluding the disabled and not offering postal votes for those on holiday or the 20% of second home owners. Many felt that all residents should have been eligible to vote.

 

It is definitely not the end of the saga.

 

RC

Controversy over third parish council consultation over footlights

Icklesham Parish Council decided, at its meeting in July, to go ahead with a third consultation on whether the footlights in Winchelsea should be turned off at midnight, having decided to ignore the results of both previous consultations. The council is proceeding despite the fact that Cllr Comotto has convened a Parish Meeting on 23^rd August which will see a Parish Poll called on the same issue.
Cllr Comotto is proposing a Parish Poll because of accusations of electoral impropriety against Cllr Comotto, and criticism of the competence of the parish clerk in the conduct of the first consultation, by a Winchelsea resident, Mr John Spencer. Cllr Comotto argues that Mr Spencer’s accusations are likely to have undermined public confidence in the ability of the council to conduct a fair poll, as have attempts by Mr Spencer to view and check the questionnaires from the original consultation so that he could confirm his allegations against Cllr Comotto. Despite the assurances from the parish clerk that these allegations were untrue, Mr Spencer served a Freedom of Information request on the parish council seeking access to the returned questionnaires. A Parish Poll, which will be conducted by the District Council, will ensure that no mud can be thrown at the conduct of the next consultation and that there will be no breach of voting confidentiality.
The parish council’s third attempt at consultation has been called for 30^th August, with a ballot box at the Court Hall between 4:00pm and 9:00pm (originally 5:00pm to 9:00pm).
However, Cllr Chishick of Winchelsea, who is an opponent of the proposal to turn off the footlights at midnight, has criticised the parish council’s new consultation for the very short notice, the shortness of the period for which the voting station will be open and for not allowing postal votes by absent residents.
It is also unclear whether the parish council will once again retrospectively impose a threshold for turnout. On the first consultation, they decided that a turnout of almost 30% was inadequate, even though it exceed the 9-13% turnouts accepted in most LAP consultations.
Cllr Comotto has asked that the Parish Poll be conducted at the same time as the election of the Police and Crime Commissioner, on 15^th November, in order to reduce costs.

Cllr Comotto

Icklesham Parish Council meeting 11 June 2012

This was the first council meeting after the Annual Parish Assembly on 14 May. Three issues from that event came onto the agenda of this meeting: whether the council should borrow as much as another £100,000; whether the council should turn off the footlights in Winchelsea at midnight; and whether there should be a re-organised parking scheme at the Pear Tree Marsh allotment site in Winchelsea open to all residents of Tanyard Lane.

The meeting once again saw the attendance of both clerks, unnecessarily adding to the council’s cost of administration.

 Council borrowing

At the Annual Parish Assembly, the threat of a Parish Poll had focussed the minds of councillors on whether parish tax-payers would accept a proposal that the council borrow up to £100,000, on top of the £40,000 already borrowed, largely to finance additional playground equipment in Icklesham. Councillors know that the hard-pressed tax-payers of other wards, let alone Icklesham, are unlikely to be impressed. Council debt would rise to some 150% of annual revenue, close to the debt/GDP ratios of those other paragons of fiscal prudence, Iceland, Ireland and Italy. That level of debt would also mean that a chunk of about £7,500 of each year’s revenue would be committed to paying off that debt every year for the next 20 years. A Parish Poll was proposed because it was felt that such a massive change in the financial structure and obligations of the parish should be put before voters.

At the Annual Parish Assembly, the Chairman had agreed to ask the council to consult residents before borrowing through a consultation organised by the council. But with no members of the public at the council meeting to hear what they said, some councillors tried to scupper that idea. Cllr Stanford argued that, as there had been no public consultation on the first borrowing of £40,000, there should be no public consultation on borrowing further £100,000. Cllr Warren, normally the voice of commonsense, proposed that any consultation should be ignored unless the result was supported by at least 50% of the electorate. Most councillors still do not seem to accept the principle that voting should not be subject to arbitrary conditions, particularly not conditions imposed by the likely losers!

Councillors then argued that they probably would not need to borrow the whole £100,000, as they expected they would be able to get substantial grants. Neutral observers may ask why the council therefore ever proposed that borrowing figure. Cynical observers might answer that, given the council’s failure to seek grants in the past, some councillors had little intention of trying to get grants in the future.

Cllr Comotto asked why the council had not determined how much grant money it could get before proposing a number for borrowing. He suggested that the council determine how much was available in grants, then fix a borrowing figure and then hold a public consultation. The council agreed.

Winchelsea footlights

The background to this issue is that Winchelsea has 17 footlights. They are not streetlights because they only light the footway, not the road. The parish council pays the bills. In contrast, in Rye and virtually everywhere else in the country, the cost of lighting is paid by the District or County Council. A proposal has been made to turn off the lights at midnight, primarily for environmental reasons. The annual saving of £700 a year would mean that the cost of altering the timers on each footlight would be recouped in less than 18 months. The council put the proposal to Winchelsea residents last year in the form of a questionnaire.

Almost 30% of households in Winchelsea returned completed questionnaires, most in favour of the proposal. However, objections were lodged by a resident, Mr John Spencer, who opposes the proposal. He complained that residents had been allowed to return completed questionnaires via their ward councillors. The insinuation is that there was no guarantee that ward councillors would pass on questionnaires supporting an opposing view or tamper with the questionnaires. As two of the Winchelsea ward councillors (Chishick and Turner) do not support the proposal to turn off the footlights at midnight, Mr Spencer’s insinuation of dishonesty was presumably aimed at Cllr Comotto, who did support the proposal.

In response to Mr Spencer’s complaint, the council decided to ignore the results of their own questionnaire. Councillors also argued that the turnout was too low, that the public had been given too much information on the questionnaire and that those who had lost the consultation were unhappy with the result! Interestingly, the29% response rate in Winchelsea compares with response rates of 9-13% to the council’s Local Action Plan questionnaire. Yet, the council is adamant that that has given them a popular mandate to spend money on all sorts of projects, including that to borrow as much as another £100,000 to spend on extra playground equipment.

Presumably, in order to allow the losers to have a second bite at the cherry, the council decided to refer the issue to the Annual Parish Assembly on 14 May. This decision was bizarre. Annual Parish Assemblies rarely attract more than half-a-dozen residents, compared to the 60 Winchelsea households (and 120 or so residents) who returned questionnaires.

In fact, 17 residents turned up at the next Annual Parish Assembly. The vote was 10-7 in favour of turning off the footlights! This did not seem to be result that some councillors had expected. In the face of this clear restatement of public opinion, the Chairman was forced to agree to take the matter back to the council on 12 June. And he was warned that, should the council try to dodge the issue again, a Parish Poll would be called.

Ahead of the council meeting on 12 June, Mr Spencer e-mailed the parish clerk to accuse Cllr Comotto of behaviour verging on electoral fraud. He alleged that, in the original consultation, Cllr Comotto had returned a questionnaire on behalf of his youngest daughter, who is below voting age. Mr Spencer has a well-established track record of making untrue and defamatory allegations against Cllr Comotto.  On this occasion, the clerk refuted Mr Spencer’s allegation (although it is questionable whether a returning officer should respond to unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud).

At the council meeting, councillors repeated the arguments that the first consultation had been defective because it gave too much information, that questionnaires could have been intercepted and fraudulently amended by ward councillors (or at least one of them), that the response rate was too low and (surprise surprise) that those who lost the vote were unhappy with the result! One councillor even complained that Cllr Comotto had campaigned in favour of the decision, which made the result unfair because opponents had not bothered to do the same!

The debate forced some councillors into political contortions that were a wonder to behold. Then, Cllr Stanford was unhappy that a Parish Poll would allow other wards to vote on an issue which she felt only involved Winchelsea (notwithstanding that all wards pay towards this expense). This line of argument was somewhat at odds with her usual position that Winchelsea is just a unit of Icklesham Parish and all councillors must have a say in its affairs. And in fact, she resumed her traditional line as soon as other Winchelsea matters came up.

Another volte face was performed by Cllr S Turner, who argued that he had been elected to represent Winchelsea, whereas his normal claim is that he has been elected to represent the whole parish (even though councillors are elected only by the voters of their own wards). On the basis of his new-found  attachment to Winchelsea voters, Cllr Turner felt he should be making the decision on behalf of his electorate.

But the best was yet to come. Cllr Stanford criticised the fact the Winchelsea residents who came to the Annual Parish Assembly included members of Cllr Comotto’s family (both registered voters). Then, she criticised Winchelsea residents for their “apathy” in failing to come to the Annual Parish Assembly and for failing to respond in greater numbers to the questionnaire. Presumably, what Cllr Stanford actually wanted was fewer Winchelsea residents who were likely to vote in favour of the footlight proposal less and more Winchelsea residents who were likely to vote against.

Cllr Stanford’s complaint about apathy in Winchelsea was also remarkable for its display of selective amnesia. She seemed to have forgotten that residents of the ward she represents (Rye Harbour) have been unwilling to provide a candidate for the council for many years (Cllr Stanford lives in Winchelsea Beach and the other Rye Harbour councillor, Cllr Bronsdon, does not even live in the parish). And Winchelsea Beach has only been able to fill its seats with two Winchelsea residents who cannot get elected in Winchelsea. She also seemed to have forgotten that, of the 17 residents who attended the Annual Parish Assembly, all but two were residents of Winchelsea!

Cllr Stanford’s complaints were supported by the Chairman, Cllr Horsman (Icklesham), who felt that more Winchelsea residents should have turned up as the meeting was in Winchelsea and there were Winchelsea issues on the agenda. He conveniently ignored the fact that, when the Assembly has been held in other wards, the turnout rarely exceeds half a dozen, even when there are issues on the agenda concerning those wards.

The council rejected a suggestion by Cllr P Turner for a pilot test and, in the end, voted to run a third consultation using a second questionnaire. This will be circulated only to registered electors.

However, this consultation is unlikely to happen as Cllr Comotto has decided to call a Parish Poll. Mr Spencer’s accusation of electoral impropriety by Cllr Comotto is likely to have tainted public confidence in the ability of the council to conduct a fair poll. Moreover, and perhaps more seriously, it has been suggested that Mr Spencer should be able to view and check the questionnaires from the original consultation so that he confirm that his allegations against Cllr Comotto are untrue. Despite the assurances received from the parish clerk that his allegations are untrue, Mr Spencer has served a Freedom of Information request on the parish council seeking access to returned questionnaires. Giving public access to voting forms of any sort would be an extraordinary breach of the basic principle that democratic votes and polls should be confidential, in order to prevent the bullying and intimidation of voters. A Parish Poll will ensure that that there is no breach of voter confidentiality and that no mud can be thrown at the conduct of the next consultation.

More largesse to Icklesham

In addition to debating whether to spend £60-80,000 of borrowed money on Icklesham (on top of the £40,000 of borrowed money already spent on that ward), the council decided to hire a temporary skatepark in Icklesham for three months over the summer holidays.  A figure of £5,000 had been earmarked.

Cllr Chishick asked whether this proposal, or indeed any of the plans for new playground equipment, were based on information about how many children lived in each ward, and what age groups they were in. Cllr Warren explained that the decision for the temporary skatepark was based on a meeting attended by 40 children of various ages, of whom, 38 wanted the skatepark.

The council suggested that the temporary skatepark might be a way of judging whether a permanent one would be used. When asked if the council was therefore going to monitor usage, the reply was no.

The council approved the proposal, despite having secured only one quote, which is contrary to its own Financial Regulations, which requires competitive quotes. The quote the accepted, which was only for 8 weeks, was for £3,800. This means that Icklesham Parish Council will be spending £100 per child in Icklesham for the summer holidays!

Pear Tree Marsh parking

At the Annual Parish Assembly, a resident of Tanyard Lane lobbied for fair access to parking in the allotment site, complaining that, at the moment, it is limited to allotment-holders and their friends.

Cllr Comotto explained that attempts to open parking on a fair basis to all residents of Tanyard Lane who did not have off-street parking had been obstructed by the refusal of the parish council to tackle the covenant which Rother District Council had placed on the site. The covenant says that the site can only be used for allotments. Rother’s solicitor insists that, before Rother will vary the covenant, the parish council will have to get permission from central government for a change of use from allotments to parking. He simply refuses to understand that no allotment plots are to be given up and that the proposal merely seeks to regularise parking that has been taking place for years.

At the Annual Parish Assembly, Cllr Comotto argued that the parish council should simply inform Rother that they intended to re-organise parking at Pear Tree Marsh. It was unlikely that Rother would bother to enforce the covenant, given that their objection was unsound. If Rother did object, then at least it would get them to the table for a serious discussion.

Cllr Merricks was clearly not paying attention. She announced that Rother had imposed a covenant on the allotment! Cllr Merricks also seemed to have forgotten that a covenant on the use of Icklesham Recreation Ground had been removed with very little problem.

Publication of council documents

The council agreed to a proposal by Cllr Comotto that all council documents, excluding only confidential documents, should be posted on the council’s website.

Richard Comotto