R4GV Leader Criticises GBC’s CEO over Reaction to ‘Skewed’ Remark

Published on: 22 Mar, 2025
Updated on: 23 Mar, 2025

Joss Bigmore at the full council meeting on Wednesday

By Martin Giles

The “mere suspicion” that the joint chief executive of Guildford and Waverley Councils has become “politically compromised” raises serious questions over his involvement in the process to asses the unitary authority options facing Surrey, the leader of the Residents for Guildford & Villages (R4GV) group at Guildford said this week.

CEO Pedro Wrobel has taken a lead role in overseeing the analysis of the options and presenting information to councillors, across Surrey, on which they can base their decision.

Cllr Joss Bigmore (Merrow) said his seven councillor group was “incredibly disappointed” at the contents of the video [see below], a recording of the preamble to an Waverley Borough Council Executive meeting inadvertently webcast last week, “where our chief executive appears to admit skewing the submission conclusion and agreeing to add further bias at the behest of the political leadership”.

The R4GV leader’s intervention came during Wednesday’s (March 19) full GBC council meeting at which he also said that his slight preference was for the two-unitary option based on financial considerations conceding that if democratic factors were councillors’ priority, they might understandably prefer the three unitary option.

The decision was also, he said made more difficult by the lack of information on how responsibility for Woking, Spelthorne and SCC’s legacy debt will be passed on.

See Cllr Bigmore’s intervention below…

Cllr Jane Austin, who earlier led a call from the Guildford and Waverly Council Conservative groups for WBC leader Paul Follows to resign, told The Dragon NEWS: “Cllr Joss Bigmore reiterated what many councillors across Surrey feel after viewing this clip and, given the volume of comments I have seen across social media, many of our residents too.

Cllr Jane Austin

“We have come to expect this poor behaviour from the leader (and the usual corresponding silence from the members of the Waverley Executive present in the room) but this exchange has undermined trust in our officers and the democratic process too. Many have expressed concerns as to how many other conversations like this occur behind closed doors.

“The clip was muted 30 secs in, so there was an awareness that the conversation was not for public consumption – why did no-one present call this out?”

Asked what the reaction to his comment about the CEO had been, Cllr Bigmore said: “Immediately after the meeting I was approached by [Cllr] George Potter who, to be honest, I thought was going to ask for medical assistance as he was red-faced and sweaty but he mumbled something barely intelligible about acting in the height of cowardice.

“In the heat of the moment and to my regret I called him a p…k but he had run away before I had the chance to explain the reasoning behind publicly criticising the CEO. Aside that, I had my usual pleasant exchanges with other councillors from all parties who didn’t raise any issue, except Cllr Bilbe (Con, Normandy) who said that he thought I had spoken well.

“I received messages the next day from past and present councillors (admittedly none of them Lib Dem) and officers of GBC, WBC, and SCC, praising my actions and thanking me for being brave enough to call this out, one of them even offering to buy me breakfast.

“[CEO] Pedro Wrobel has asked to meet me to discuss the matters raised, which I have happily arranged next week.”

Cllr George Potter

Invited to respond, Cllr Potter (Lib Dem, Burpham) said: “I wasn’t red-faced, sweating or mumbling. I simply said, calmly, that “to publicly attack someone in a forum where you know they are not allowed to respond really is the most contemptible form of cowardice.

“Following which I walked away, though I do recall hearing him yell something about me being a p….k, which I ignored because that’s the kind of loudmouthed grandstanding I’ve come to expect from a man who is happy to make personal attacks on an officer from the public platform of a council meeting but is so thin-skinned about being challenged in private conversation that he feels the need to be personally abusive and then go running to the press.

“It’s really no wonder that members of his own group could be seen visibly grimacing during his speech in the chamber.”