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| Mendip District Council Must Be Abolished |
That Mendip's councillors - Lib Dem, Green or Tory - are inept is old news, perhaps. The Council has a terrible reputation amongst residents, amongst council officers and even amongst town and parish clerks.
Mendip District Council has come to the attention of Private Eye and its "Rotten Boroughs" editor, in relation to the Sandys Hill Lane development on land owned by Tory Councillor Philip Ham, former Chair of the Council's Scrutiny Board - until he resigned from it claiming lack of scrutiny - and Chair of the local Parish Council.
We reported the grubby decision-making on Sandys Hill Lane and the conflicts of interest.
We opposed Sandys Hill Lane vigorously, unlike the councillors who voted it through the Planning Board, despite huge objections from us and other local residents. Residents were ignored but Somerset Independents stood up for residents.
The news of how inept Mendip councillors are, needs to be told now because despite repeated failings, councillors are still trying to claim that they are competent and that they stand up for Mendip's residents - nearly a year after this debacle in June 2020. Daniel Mumby of SomersetLive has reported on it, and Lib Dem Councillor Matt Martin as well as Councillor Helen Kay, are criticising his report.
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| Lib Dem or Green They Let You Down |
They do not stand up for Mendip's residents. If they did, then Somerset Independents would not have had to be created in order to stand up for residents.
The national parties are all the same. The Tory councillors are no better - until 2019 they "ran" the Council. The faces may have changed but the people of Mendip are still not being served. There are no Labour councillors on Mendip.
This example shows just how bad they are.
"Lib Dem Councillor Damon Hooton: With the greatest respect Helen, you've been on the Board now over a year and this has happened at every Board.
Green Councillor Helen Kay: What that certain things are allowed straight through."
At the 17th June 2020 virtual meeting of the Mendip's Planning Board, the meeting had barely started.
But cross words followed when two Green councillors - Councillor Helen Key and Councillor Lindsay MacDougall - cried foul about the rules to the Chair Damon Hooton.
The agenda item on the rule below had been the same at meetings before, during the year that both Cllr Kay and Cllr MacDougall had been involved in!
Who knows how many people's lives these inept Green councillors had unwittingly affected without knowing it, when they should have been standing up for residents as elected representatives?
Below is what was said.
We publish the transcript in the public interest, so that residents know how awful these councillors are at representing them.
If you don't believe us that councillors could be this bad, you can see for yourself in the official recording. That is, unless Mendip remove it because it is too embarrassing?
Hang on... we have just checked and they have removed it. It was there before.
IT IS JUST AS WELL THAT WE TRANSCRIBED IT THEN!
Please... read on...
Transcript of 17th June 2020 Mendip Planning Board Meeting
06:35 Chair Damon Hooton: ... moving on to agenda item 6 which is Resolution to agree all recommendations made on development management applications not raised for discusssion.
06:45 DH: Now for this evening's agenda, agenda items DM02 and DM03 have been withdrawn. Therefore obviously will not be discussed. But not raised for discussion are agenda items DM05 and DM06.
07:03 DH: Can I have a proposer and a seconder that they be, er, devolved to Development Management according to officer recommendation?
NHC?: Happy to propose Chair
EH?: (seconding...?)
07:13: ? Helen Kay interrupting. Sorry,
07:20: Helen Kay: I don't understand.
07:24: Helen Kay: I'm sorry, I don't understand.
07:28: DH: Who's that? Sorry, please don't interrupt. If you're gonna open up your mike and speak, you at least tell me who you are.
07:39: HK: My apologies, it's Helen Kay. I don't understand. Are we just erm, going to nod through DM05 and DM06? Is that the idea?
07:47: DH: It will go through on officers recommendation. Yes, because they're not raised for discussion, they won't be discussed. And Helen, you know, you've been on the board now for over a year. So they will be passed through with officer recommendation.
08:00 Lindsay Macdougall: It's Lindsay here as well. I've never, erm, I'm not clear about this either. Things being waived through that are on the agenda.
08:12 DH: Martin. (legal adviser)
08:14 Martin: Thank you Chair. Erm, on every agenda, there's this item that is applications that come to the Board, referred to the Board, that are not then raised for discussion are then put to the Board without officer presentation or public speaking or debate and they are determined in accordance with the officer recommendation on those applications.
08:45 Martin: That has been the practise for as many years as I can remember, Chair. And these applications, as far as I know, are no different.
08:59 DH: Thank you Martin.
09:01 HK: Can I come back?
09:02 DH: Yes
09:04 HK?LM?: Do we have any, er, say on this at all then?
09:07 DH: Er, you've had the best part of two to three weeks to have your say on it.
(interrupting, can't tell)
09:17 HK/officer?: Councillor Kay also wish to speak.
09:24 HK: I'm afraid I was unaware of that. I thought that if they were on the agenda, we were going to debate them. And we were gonna have a presentation and I've got notes. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. Erm, I've got a condition I want to add to DM05 and I'm concerned about flooding for DM06 and the loss of trees. So I did not know that this was going to go straight through.
09:49 DH: With the greatest respect Helen, you've been on the Board now over a year and this has happened at every Board.
09:56 HK: What that certain things are allowed straight through.
10:00 DH: It's not that they're allowed. It's just that they're not raised for discussion. These applications take weeks and months in the making. And the agenda for this, for all of the Boards, comes out two weeks before the Board. So members, any member, you don't have to be ward councillor or anything. Any member can raise any issue and ask for it to be debated. The cut-off was 5pm yesterday and nobody raised it for discussion. No member of the public, not even the ward councillor, not even a member of the Board.
10:36 HK: OK, my understanding was that by default, everything on the agenda is debated, unless somebody raises it, erm, as not to be debated, and that's my misunderstanding and perhaps poor training or not listening when I should have been listening. Erm, I'm prepared to admit that I have not understood that and I am concerned about some of these. DM06 for example,loss of trees and flooding. However, if someone wants to put a motion, I could vote against it on the grounds of the fact that we haven't debated it and I've got some concerns. So if somebody else wants to put a motion and we want to follow due process, that's fine.
11:14 DH: That's fine. I've already asked for that. So could I have a proposer please. Sorry I've already had Edric and seconded by Mike Pullin. Anybody wish to vote against, er, if you don't say I will assume that you will agree with it. So those who want to vote against please.
11:36 HK: I would like to vote against, Helen Kay.
11:41 LM: I would like to vote against, Lindsay Macdougall.
11:42 DH: OK, thank you very much. So they will be passed on a majority verdict, er, in line with officer recommendation.
11:52 DH: Thank you. We move on now to Agenda Item 7....
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