The vacant seat on Salhouse Parish Council (SPC) is to be subjected to a vote as
supporters of SNUB have forced, by submitting the necessary ten signatures to
Broadland District Council (BDC), the parish council to hold an election. We will
also attempt to force the same another election to fill the vacancy opened up by the
resignation of David Hastings (more on this on another Blog later).
This is the first time for a long time that there has been a need to hold an election
as historically there has been a shortfall of parish councillors at the normal election
time. Vacancies during the term of the council have been filled by the co-option of
councillors after a cursory interview by the current councillors. The net effect of this
has been a council that have similar views as the incumbents.
We will now, by having an election campaign be able to gauge the feeling of
residents on the important subjects, which clearly include the plans for additional
housing called for in the Joint Core Strategy (JCS).
However the Chair of SPC has warned local residents, in the summer edition of the
Salhouse Saga by saying:
“In the event that there is more than one candidate, Salhouse Parish will
have to bear the election costs, which could be up to £2000. Inevitably this
expenditure will impact on the spending by the Council this year and may
significantly affect the Precept charge on parishioners for the next Financial
Year”
So what is he trying to say? That democracy has a price and that it is SNUB’s fault
that we forced an election and that the council tax will go up next year because of
this! Is he trying to put people off so he can continue to co-opt residents onto SPC?
He goes on to say:
Councillors need to be interested in all aspects of Salhouse Parish life
and are unable to restrict themselves to single issues in which they have a
particular interest.
So here we have it. You make your own mind up about the transparency and
openness of this approach. We know what we think.
Needless to say Stephen Heard the founding Chair of SNUB will be standing for
election and we would call upon all Salhouse residents to listen to the debate and
vote the way you think is appropriate. We welcome the opportunity to put our case
to the electorate to confirm that our views represent those of the people who live in
Salhouse.
Turns out not to be a problem then as the Salhouse Parish Council Chairman obviously didn't know that the reserve account has a positive balance of £31,000 in it.
ReplyDeleteIt appears as revealed at the PC meeting last evening that they have built up this reserve due to the fact that they haven’t spent the money they put aside each year to cover the cost of a bye-election!
They haven’t had to have a bye-election because the existing Councillors have always been able to co-opt someone on to the council without the need for a democratic choice! Trouble is you have to pass an interview to be co-opted and guess what; you only pass the interview if you agree with their views!
I put myself forward to be co-opted last year and was refused due to me supposedly having a conflict of interests. Well lets see what happens in the ballot next week.
Stephen Heard
Good luck Stephen.
ReplyDeleteSPC chair's comment is absolutley outrageous! Just as you ask, what's the message meant to be here? That considerable inconvenience and possibly expense may be incurred if anyone has the audacity to exercise their local democratic rights? Well tough! Again, just as you say, the self-selecting nature of the existing system is rotten. It needs to be challenged, so please keep at it, and let's all see what the people of Salhouse want.
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you what really 'stinks'!....the Salhouse Parish Chair using his vote to back his sycophantic 'friends' to prevent the clerk from recording the meetings so she could keep exact 'minutes'....was this to allow the clerk to 'brush-up' on her potential 100 words per minute shorthand skills of 3 hours worth of meeting aganda's?..or was it as is correctly perceived by all...a means of 'non-recording' of possible embarassing agenda items that one of the 'non-sycophants' dare to mention in meeting..what have they got to hide?....very, very, poor indeed!.Salhouse resident.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all the previous comments. The chair of Salhouse parish Council is behaving exactly like the Leader of Broadland. They are a mirror image of each other by getting a few like minded individuals to back to push through their personal agenda regardles of the residents views. The Chairman of Salhouse deludes himself into thinking he can do a deal with Broadland and said so in the Salhouse Saga. Broadland is intent on getting as many new houses in their patch as they can and don't care where they go. Salhouse residents were horified when they found out thanks to SNUB, about the Salhouse Hub Development. That complex comprising of conference halls and exhibition centres hotels, enormous bus and car parks etc would destroy this village yet Broadland knew more about it than they let on as they were coresponding with the architect many months beforehand.
ReplyDeleteI'm confident they will back it if the developer returns to put in an application.
We cannot trust Broadland or trust a chairman that thinks he can trust Broadland and do deals with them.
Last month, Rackheath Parish council discovered to their 'horror' that Circle housing ( through Broadland District Council), intend to build ANOTHER 14 houses next to the newly completed grade 6 houses in Trinity Close. But here's the catch!these houses will only be grade 3 and they will remove half of the gardens of those residents to build?, this, on land which is outside of the agreed 'settlement' boundary, yes,the AGREED settlement boundary! these same 'false' promises given to residents of Rackheath from certain Broadland leaders were given to the chair of Salhouse Parish Council regarding the future Salhouse housing numbers( knowing or naively).. ... can we really trust any of them?
ReplyDeleteI read that seven of them have thrown their rattles out of the pram!
ReplyDelete