UPDATE (29/6/21): Somerset West and Taunton Councillor Offenders Who Didn't Pay Their Council Tax On Time

 

Somerset West and Taunton

UPDATE (29/6/21): We've now spoken to both councillors who are the worst offenders on their arrears on council tax. There are two new articles that we have published with the details of their arrears and their responses.

Councillor Kelly Durdan article is here. It includes the views of local residents to her failure to pay her council tax.

Councillor Paul Bolton article is here. We have asked him to prove his claims in response to his arrears. Update (10.15am 29/6/21). Due to action from Somerset Independents, Cllr Bolton has now PAID UP! more on the article at the link above.

ZERO of the other four councillors have responded to our request for answers on their arrears. As we've said before, their arrears are not as serious as Cllr Durdan or Cllr Bolton. But we would appreciate answers from Councillors Blaker, Davies, Tully and Kravis.

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UPDATE (14/6/21): Unlike Mendip District Council who only gave partial answers, Somerset West and Taunton gave detailed answers in response to our Freedom of Information request on councillors in arrears on their council tax.

Some of the details are below. Some we are still withholding until we have heard back from those councillors. We will not wait forever.

We want to hear it from the councillors themselves.

So now, we have asked all six councillor questions to confirm the details of their arrears.

The most serious offenders - Councillor Bolton and Councillor Kelly Durdan - have still failed to respond.

The less serious offenders - Councillors Blaker, Davies, Tully, Kravis - have received questions asking them about their short period of arrears. 

We await their answers.

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UPDATE (11/6/21): We have sent the full details to Councillor Paul Bolton in a final attempt to get an answer. We intend to publish them if we don't get an adequate answer soon.  We will be doing the same for Councillor Kelly Durdan.

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UPDATE (10/6/21): Councillor Paul Bolton and Councillor Kelly Durdan have still not responded to our offer of a right of reply to our questions.

Neither councillor has answered our suggestion that they should consider resigning as councillors. 

Councillor Paul Bolton is the current Mayor of Minehead and Independent Councillor for Alcombe.

Councillor Kelly Durdan is a former Conservative Council candidate and now Independent Councillor for Creech St. Michael.

We hope that they will answer our questions and consider their positions as councillors.

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Somerset Independents has discovered that SIX councillors on Somerset West and Taunton (SWT) District Council did not pay their council tax on time.

This Council was formed without a Referendum and against the wishes of residents of the West Somerset and Taunton Deane councils.

The councillors who were in arrears were as follows (you can click on the links for more details, including their email addresses and contact details - in case you want to ask them why they didn't pay):

Councillor Mark Blaker (Independent, Wiveliscombe and District)

Councillor Hugh Davies (Independent, Watchet and Williton)

Councillor Marcus Kravis (was Liberal Democrat, now "Non-Party Aligned", and still "Portfolio Holder for Asset Management and Economic Development")

Councillor Ray Tully (Liberal Democrat, West Monkton and Cheddon Fitzpaine)

Councillor Paul Bolton (Independent, Alcombe) and currently Mayor of Minehead Town Council

Councillor Kelly Durdan (Independent and former Conservative candidate, Creech St Michael)

Now, the severity of the arrears of council tax varies.

The top four councillors - Blaker, Davies, Kravis and Tully - have now paid up according to the information that we have received from SWT Council. They received reminders and paid up.

But Councillor Paul Bolton and Councillor Kelly Durdan were so far in arrears that they received a court summons. And they still had not paid up despite both receiving a liability order. The arrears were not just for the 2020/21 financial year but going over a longer period!

We have asked both Councillor Bolton and Councillor Durdan a series of questions, to offer them a right of reply.

We have also suggested that they should resign as councillors.

We did not receive any response before we published this article (Sunday 6th June 1100 hours). We gave them two days.

We think that both Councillor Bolton and Councillor Durdan should resign their seats on this Council and any other council that they are a member of. They are not fit to represent Somerset residents.

Denise Wyatt, the Nominations Officer for Somerset Independents who chooses candidates for election for the Party, says: 

Denise Wyatt

"Somerset Independents has no association with any of the so-called "independents" on SWT Council. Their election was before we were formed in March 2020.

We are delighted to make this clear, especially with the awful behaviour of these two "independent" councillors.

We have made clear to both councillors and their Group Leader Councillor Gwil Wren that if Councillor Bolton or Councillor Durdan had been elected as Somerset Independents councillors, that they would have already been expelled from the Somerset Independents Party and Somerset Independents political group on the Council."