Letter: An Ash Parish ‘No’ That Means It’s None of Your Business

Published on: 14 Oct, 2020
Updated on: 14 Oct, 2020

Ash Parish Council – as it was before Cllr Eyre’s resignation and Bill Cole’s co-option.

From John Ferns

In response to: Residents Rebel Against Total Tory Control of Ash Parish Council

On Monday night (October 12) in the slot allocated for questions from the public during the broadcast “Teams meeting” of the Planning committee at Ash Parish Council, I asked: “Are these meetings going to be recorded and be available to the public?”. That’s for six months, as is the practice at GBC.

The chair of the Planning Committee (Cllr Marsha Moseley), in a peremptory tone that defied discussion, said “No” and there was no requirement to do so.

That may or may not be true, but I do not believe this is a decent and proper way for any public body to behave, particularly when Ash Parish Council is drawing rapidly increasing fire from aggrieved residents for their “lack of openness and transparency”.

It is time this council was put out of their misery.

Responses to Letter: An Ash Parish ‘No’ That Means It’s None of Your Business

Peta Malthouse Reply

October 15, 2020 at 4:17 pm

Mr Ferns and anyone else is, of course, entitled to make their own note of the meeting and compare it to the official minutes. These have to be published on their website within 30 days. If the minutes do not accurately record what is said or leave out what you think is an important point you may ask for it to be amended.

You could also ask the clerk to provide you with a copy of the minutes when they are placed on their website or notice of when they are displayed.

As John Ferns says, transparency is everything really. The Dragon wrote a very helpful piece about problems at Normandy PC setting out what obligations a parish council has to publish records.