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17 June 202
Marc Byrom resigned from Hughenden Parish Council on 10 June. He was co- opted onto the Council in November 2022.
The Council is now down to 7 councillors and has 8 councillor vacancies.
HPC’s website hasn’t been updated for some time and information on the website about councillors and vacancies is incorrect. This is the current situation:-
Naphill and Walters Ash ward – Usha Prashar (3 vacancies)
Hughenden Valley ward – Simon Kearey (3 vacancies)
Widmer End ward – Gareth Cadwallader, Linda Derrick and Sam Thomas (1 vacancy)
Great Kingshill ward - Stan Jones and Yvonne Wilding (1 vacancy)
The Council’s quorum is 5. Only 5 councillors attended the last two meetings of Council, so it was only just quorate. Which is odd because the Council now meets only every other month and the dates are scheduled well in advance. Attending Full Council meetings at HPC is not exactly an onerous task.
That said, Full Council meetings which do take place are overloaded and go on to 10pm. Even so, the meetings fail to tackle, or even discuss, critical work. Moreover, decisions often have to be deferred as the preparatory work has not been done. This normally means a 2 month wait to the next meeting.
The Finance Committee met on 11 June but was inquorate. Its quorum is three. The next meeting of the Finance Committee is not until October. So, being a member of the Finance Committee is not exactly an onerous role either.
Items to be considered at the Finance Committee will have to be taken at the next Council meeting on 25 June.
Urgent, critical work just keeps piling up.
The obvious solution is of course more, and shorter, Council meetings focused on Council’s priorities.
But Council hasn’t got any priorities. So the vicious circle continues.
I have offered to help many times but my offer has rarely been taken up. So I am enjoying other things.
We will see what happens.
Meanwhile, I’ve been keeping a record of councillors’ comings and goings.
HPC has 15 seats for councillors. I reckon 24 councillors have been elected or co-opted to HPC since the local elections in May 2021. 17 have left the Council, having stayed an average of 8 months. Only 2 remain from the 2021 May elections.
The last councillor was co-opted in March 2023.
Application forms for co-option onto the Council are available from the locum Clerk.