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17 September 2023
HPC’s Full Council meets on 19 September and a number of residents have asked if I could provide an update since the last Council meeting in July.
There have been a number of staff changes which Council has not yet informed residents about; so, I will leave that for now.
Apart from that, you know as much as I do.
There has been no Council meeting (as normal during August). But nor have there been any Committee meetings. Council decided to have no formal meetings during the two months from July to next week and then only every alternate month thereafter. The purpose of these decisions was to enable basic work to be done.
Councillors were also asked, for the same reason, to reduce requests to staff to a minimum.
So, I took a number of breaks from the Council over the past two months, often where I had no access to my HPC e-mail account.
After each break, I opened my HPC e-mail account to get up-to-date and to respond to issues. However, there was nothing of any substance from anyone at the Council.
There were no e-mails about issues that had come up at the July meeting, including the breaches of the Financial Regulations, Standing Orders and possibly a breach in the law.
There were no copies of correspondence with residents in my ward or about issues which could affect residents in my ward.
There were no e-mails about problems or issues that had come up since July.
There were no workplans or objectives for the work of the staff over the summer and no reports of what work had been done.
So, as I say, you know as much as I do.
In order to cut down work for staff, I made few requests. I raised a couple of concerns from residents about hedges but got no response.
I passed on some research a resident had done into the ownership of Cockpit Hole in Great Kingshill and suggested Council might like to thank the resident. No-one did.
I asked about progress with streetlight repairs and was told there was a lack of progress due to “unexpected communication barriers”. I asked for clarification.
The member of the Streetlights Working Group who represents Widmer End Residents’ Association asked me to resume my membership of the Streetlights Working Group, and the Chair of the Working Group has said that would be helpful. I have agreed to do so but the Working Group reports to the Environment and Service Committee and appointing me to the Working Group is a matter for that Committee. The Committee meets in October. In the meantime, I have offered to help informally.
Outside the Council, I commented, as a ward councillor, on some planning applications to Bucks Council with the help of residents. I did this as a ward councillor as HPC has no Planning Committee and no process for Council to comment as a statutory consultee.
As for next week’s Council, I understand that the agendas are no longer to be posted on parish notice boards – only on HPC’s website and the notice board outside the Council’s offices. So, it might be helpful to know the agenda is at AGENDA-19.9.23-.pdf (hughenden-pc.gov.uk).
Papers for the meeting are not online but are available from the Clerk.
You might notice that the issue of my sanctions is on the agenda. I decided last December not to respond to such issues. However, without informing or consulting me, HPC made a response to Bucks Council’s Monitoring Officer on the sanctions which was inaccurate and reflected poorly on me. That response would have gone to BC’s Standards Committee and presumably into the public domain.
I have therefore e-mailed to the Chair of HPC correcting the record, copied to Council, the Monitoring Officer, members of the Standards Committee and committee members of the Residents’ Association.
I am happy to send copies if you ask.