Blaenhonddan Community Council
The Neath Guardian report was somewhat sensationalist but basically accurate. It should be said, however, that a decision on the Marie Curie donation was deferred rather than rejected outright.
It is regrettable that a debate over One Voice Wales should split on political lines. (See previous post) It is not as if heat had been generated by differences of party philosophy. Another community council, on which Labour has the largest party representation, has been affiliated to One Voice Wales from the outset. It recently decided, after a reasoned debate, to send just one representative to attend a number of OVW’s training modules.
Other resolutions were passed, notably on a proposition from Cllr Linda Ware, “that in all future meetings of there will be a regular item - ‘Report from County Borough Councillors & Reports from all Outside Bodies”. Cllr E Jones objected that it was illegal for the community council to call borough councillors to account. This is certainly something which the Clerk is going to have to look into.
It is clearly right that members of the community council nominated by the council to represent our interests on outside bodies should give an account of relevant developments on those outside bodies. However, the CC as a whole has a direct relationship with the county borough council; county borough councillors have a direct relationship with the voters in their wards, and not with the people in the other wards which make up Blaenhonddan; and there is a direct relationship between the county borough councillor and the county borough. The possibilities of conflict of interest, and of prejudice, are obvious. I attempted therefore to remove the reference to ‘County Borough Councillors’, but was unsuccessful.
One correction to my previous report: Mike Richards, it seems, will not continue on the Open Spaces Committee which is therefore one member light, as I understand it.
2 Comments
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Linda Ware of Cilffriw has emailed this comment which I publish unedited:
Dear Mr. Little,
Something you might like to put on your site re the article - Blaenhonddan Community Council - the Neath Guardian printed a likely figure of £4000 for the proferred training with One Voice Wales. The maximum amount it could possibly have been was £2,700. For this amount of money to be spent all 6 modules would have to be attended by all 18 Councillors. If the modules would be held in this area at the same time then the maximum spend possible would be £450. The Plaid Cymru contingent on the Council had already discussed which modules they would wish to participate in prior to the meeting at which the Guardian reporter gained his information and this information has now been forwarded to the Clerk as arranged at that meeting. For your information the amount of money which would be used out of the training allowance, which the clerk stated at that meeting was in place for such training, is in fact £175. A far cry from the £4000 erroneous figure used to scaremonger and disparage by the Guardian newspaper. The training is not also, as reported by the Guardian newspaper, ‘personal training’, as it would be of no advantage to anyone outside their duties as Councillors.
We have been in contact with the Press Complaints Commission re the Guardian article referred to by yourself on your website and decided to not press further after the article in the following weeks paper, however we have asked that our official complaint be kept on file and in the event of a recurrence of such sensational and misleading reporting the original complaint would be regurgitated alongside any other forthcoming complaints.
Also the Open Spaces Committee set up by Blaenhonddan Community Council after the May elections 2008 did not include Mike Richards and is not one place light. Mike Richards was offered a place on this Committee originally and refused to take up the offer.
I hope you do not mind me e mailing you with this information but in the interest of clarity I do believe that as much information as is possible should be put in the public domain so that distorted views are not given to the electorate of what is actually occuring within local government in the Blaenhonddan area.
best wishes,
Linda Ware
I don’t have any political axe to grind just my observations. It does seem that the
Neath Guardian is very selective to say the least on any reporting
regarding political parties, other than the Labour Party who always seem to get a good press.
I think it is about time the other parties came out of their complacency and started
shouting from the rooftops about them because the Labour party with the support of the NG
in the area seem to be delving in very dirty politics lately.