17 October 2021
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The last meeting of Hughenden Parish Council on 12 October was quite dramatic and I have been wondering how to cover everything that happened. So I’ve decided to leave the actual Council meeting to my next blog; this one is solely about the beginning of the meeting, called public participation, where the public are allowed to speak.
After all, if the public take the trouble to come to a Council meeting in the rain, their views should be recorded somewhere. And it was great to see so many members of the public there after so many meetings without them.
The Council meeting was held in one of the rooms at Great Kingshill Cricket Club which is rather small for public meetings. 30 or so members of the public turned up. Some had to stand at the back of the room and I think some had to stand in the doorway. One of the residents had alerted the Clerk before the meeting that a largish number of residents might come but she was unable to find an alternative larger venue in the time available.
My apologies, as an HPC councillor, for the inconvenience this caused to members of the public.
It also meant that councillors were rather cramped at the other end of the room from the public, so my note-taking was not very good. So my apologies if I do not get what was said exactly right.
Public participation is limited, under HPC’s Standing Orders, to 15 minutes. Anyone who speaks is only allowed 2 minutes each and they have to speak to an item on the agenda. In the event, there was only time for 4 speakers and this is what they said.
Mr Derek Ransom spoke first, on behalf of many residents of Hughenden Valley, to Item 4 on the agenda. Item 4 was meant to be a written report by the Council giving an update on the activities of North West Chilterns Community Board. However, the Council did not produce the report.
Mr Ransom set out the concerns of residents about a report commissioned by the Community Board which considered traffic problems in Hughenden Valley caused by lorries from a company called Country Supplies. One of the proposals in the report suggested that a new access road be built to Country Supplies from Bryants Bottom Road with enhanced parking for the lorries.
It appeared from the report that HPC’s Chairman had given his support to this proposal.
Mr Ransom reminded the Council that Country Supplies was sited in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the Green Belt, and made it very clear that residents were opposed to this proposal. He said residents would be taking this up with their councillors on Bucks Council.
Mrs Jill Armshaw spoke next. Mrs Armshaw was the Deputy Clerk to HPC for 7 years until her resignation six months ago.
She spoke to Resolution 6 on the Council’s agenda which says: -
“6.1 Resolution 1 HPC wish to publicly confirm our total support in the ability, integrity, determination, and devotion to duty of our Clerk and Deputy Clerk.
6.2 Resolution 2 Cllr Derrick is entitled to publicly express her personal views on Council decisions, but not views about Officers.
Mrs Armshaw thought Resolution 6 proposed improper procedures and attempted to gag and publicly demonise Cllr Linda Derrick. The council had no lawful authority to prevent Cllr Derrick from sharing information concerning matters of public interest.
Mrs Armshaw said the Council had a culture of secrecy and of withholding information which is contrary to the principle of openness. There was nothing wrong with challenge and scrutiny unless you had something to hide.
Her experience of Hughenden Parish Council was of a misogynistic culture characterised by incompetence, unacceptable behaviour, lack of corporate governance, and failure to plan and get things done.
She added that if councillors supported these motions, then they voted for the same groupthink which had created this culture of failure. Councillors needed to make independent decisions based on the principles of public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness and honesty.
Mrs Armshaw then called on the Chairman and Vice Chairman of HPC to resign.
Her call for these resignations was applauded by many at the meeting.
Mrs Debra Main then spoke. Mrs Main was a councillor on HPC until the May elections.
She spoke to Recommendation 11 which says:-
“11.2 That previous resolutions relating to the regeneration of the Community and Play Areas at Templewood and Great Kingshill Play Area be set aside.
11.3 That a maximum budget of £45,000.00 be set aside to fund the Templewood Community / Play Area Project.”
Mrs Main pointed out that the HPC website says the Council recognised the importance of play and recreation and had committed to projects at Templewood and Great Kingshill. The 2021-22 Budget included reserves earmarked for Templewood of £30k and £40k respectively.
She asked if the Council could explain the background to the resolutions, specifically,
· Which resolutions were to be set aside and why?
· Would this entail any wasted resources and expenditure?
· Where was the analysis underlying the recommendation?
· Why was funding of £45k to be reserved for Templewood and nothing for Great Kingshill?
· Where was the business case and timeline for the £45k spend on Templewood?
· Where does this leave the original amount set aside in the ‘approved’ budget?
She added that in March of this year, she volunteered to take a lead on the playgrounds but was told that there were reasons to wait, which puzzled her. She was now furious that the reasons were simply down to human resource constraints, when a willing resource (herself) was turned away 6 months ago.
She thought this another woeful example of mismanagement of Council resources and failure to deliver against key community projects.
Finally, Mr. Hugh McCarthy spoke. Mr. McCarthy was for many years a parish, district and county councillor.
Mr. McCarthy also expressed his concerns about the problem with lorries at Country Supplies but suggested the issue needed to be considered across the parish and to include the company’s site at Naphill.
He also expressed his concerns about HPC applying for transport feasibility studies at Cockpit Road in Great Kingshill to be carried out by Transport for Bucks.
He said Widmer End had a bitter experience with using its S106 money from the Wellsbourne development at Terriers. This S106 money was intended to mitigate the problems of increased traffic through Widmer End. However the vast majority of the S106 money (about £100k) went in feasibility studies to TfB and not actual measures to manage the traffic.