I might be wrong G but I think the Independant in Gt Harwood who was elected as a Tory Dave Mason is up for election this year, but I may be wrong. of the 4 independants now on the council only Dave Mason was elected as a Conservative Simon
Full Council - 1st & 9th March
- Thread starter Ken Moss
- Start date
Well if that's the case, like Dave, I think that's wrong.
Anyone, locally or nationally, elected under one party banner, who then jumps ship, should be made to fight a by-election.
You can follow the meeting online here
Live - Hyndburn Council meeting | Accrington Observer - menmedia.co.uk
Or you could follow watty08 on twitter
Live - Hyndburn Council meeting | Accrington Observer - menmedia.co.uk
Or you could follow watty08 on twitter
Last edited:
Think Spurs and Milan on telly in 5 minutes will be better entertainment, good night I'm off to watch the match
I know that Cllr Parkins stodd as an Independent at his last election. He had previously been a Labour Councillor but resigned after a fall out with their hierarchy and did not seek re election before standing as Independent a year later.
My motion to abolish council buffets was defeated. Cllr Britcliffe suggested that it was a back door for the Labour group to increase their expenses.
You may check my expense claims anytime you like, you won't find any meal claims and I have no intention of taking them in future.
My motion on writing to Royal Mail to reclassify the Hyndburn postcodes away from Blackburn was withdrawn as Cllr Britcliffe had coincidentally already had items of correspondence addressing both of my motions.
The Conservative amendment to my original motion was therefore not allowed and legal advice was sought as to whether I could do this.
I could.
Cllr Peter Clarke wrote to me on 4th March 2011 to complain that I had written on the local internet discussion forum Accrington Web about the £250,000 allocated to Rishton by the Leader of the Council for improvements to the area:
(See post 4 on 'Hyndburn 2m bonanza' thread)
Before I wrote this paragraph I failed to check my facts and have now been reassured by Cllr Clarke that no members of his family live on Norfolk Street. Therefore I wish to apologise unreservedly for making the statement on Accrington Web.
Cllr Peter Clarke told me in his letter that he considered the statement to be 'libel against (him) personally' and he asked that I apologise publicly to him in order to 'prevent legal action'.
I wish to confirm that I accept my statement about his personal connection with the playing field proposal in Norfolk Street is completely without factual basis and I wish to ask Cllr Clarke publicly to accept this sincere apology for the distress or embarrassment caused by my ill-founded remarks.
I trust that in complying with Cllr Clarke's request the matter can now be closed without resorting to legal action.
I also asked a question on notice:
Would the Leader of the Council confirm that he condones the £2,765.47 claimed by former Cllr Roy Atkinson as Chair of the Employment Committee between 2006 and 2010, despite the fact that this committee has not met since 2004?
Cllr Britcliffe's response suggested that as I was relatively new to council I may not understand fully how things work and that the fact that the committee had not met was an indicator of the good job that Cllr Atkinson had done in the role.
A supplementary question was disallowed by the Mayor for having no relevance to either the first question or the reply:
Can the Leader of the Council confirm that he claimed £1,073.25 as Chair of the Licensing Committee between 2007 and 2008 even though the committee did not convene in either of those years?
I stated that the connection was with members' allowances but accepted the Mayor's authority on this and sat down.
I also asked a second question on notice:
Would the Leader of the Council please verify the claim by Cllr Marlene Haworth in The Accrington Observer on 25th February that an extra 3,000 people have been brought into the town following Aldo Zilli’s appearance and explain how the council measured that figure?
Although the immediate response was to suggest that I was talking the town down while others were trying to talk it up, when asked a second time he indicated that there were several devices in the town centre to do this and that he was satisfied that anything Cllr Haworth had stated was true.
You may check my expense claims anytime you like, you won't find any meal claims and I have no intention of taking them in future.
My motion on writing to Royal Mail to reclassify the Hyndburn postcodes away from Blackburn was withdrawn as Cllr Britcliffe had coincidentally already had items of correspondence addressing both of my motions.
The Conservative amendment to my original motion was therefore not allowed and legal advice was sought as to whether I could do this.
I could.
Cllr Peter Clarke wrote to me on 4th March 2011 to complain that I had written on the local internet discussion forum Accrington Web about the £250,000 allocated to Rishton by the Leader of the Council for improvements to the area:
(See post 4 on 'Hyndburn 2m bonanza' thread)
Before I wrote this paragraph I failed to check my facts and have now been reassured by Cllr Clarke that no members of his family live on Norfolk Street. Therefore I wish to apologise unreservedly for making the statement on Accrington Web.
Cllr Peter Clarke told me in his letter that he considered the statement to be 'libel against (him) personally' and he asked that I apologise publicly to him in order to 'prevent legal action'.
I wish to confirm that I accept my statement about his personal connection with the playing field proposal in Norfolk Street is completely without factual basis and I wish to ask Cllr Clarke publicly to accept this sincere apology for the distress or embarrassment caused by my ill-founded remarks.
I trust that in complying with Cllr Clarke's request the matter can now be closed without resorting to legal action.
I also asked a question on notice:
Would the Leader of the Council confirm that he condones the £2,765.47 claimed by former Cllr Roy Atkinson as Chair of the Employment Committee between 2006 and 2010, despite the fact that this committee has not met since 2004?
Cllr Britcliffe's response suggested that as I was relatively new to council I may not understand fully how things work and that the fact that the committee had not met was an indicator of the good job that Cllr Atkinson had done in the role.
A supplementary question was disallowed by the Mayor for having no relevance to either the first question or the reply:
Can the Leader of the Council confirm that he claimed £1,073.25 as Chair of the Licensing Committee between 2007 and 2008 even though the committee did not convene in either of those years?
I stated that the connection was with members' allowances but accepted the Mayor's authority on this and sat down.
I also asked a second question on notice:
Would the Leader of the Council please verify the claim by Cllr Marlene Haworth in The Accrington Observer on 25th February that an extra 3,000 people have been brought into the town following Aldo Zilli’s appearance and explain how the council measured that figure?
Although the immediate response was to suggest that I was talking the town down while others were trying to talk it up, when asked a second time he indicated that there were several devices in the town centre to do this and that he was satisfied that anything Cllr Haworth had stated was true.
Last edited by a moderator:
Sounds like your meeting were fun Ken
It gives me satisfaction knowing that although there will almost always be objections to my questions, motions and personal opinions I am doing exactly what I promised my residents I would do and standing up for Rishton and the borough of Hyndburn.
As I stated last night, it is not up to us as councillors to decide if we are value for money, the public are the only ones with that right.
If I wasn't feeling so rough at the moment, health wise, I'd have loved to have been in the public gallery last night.
Sounds much more dramatic than any other theatre in the borough at the moment.
Unless the EDL protest outside the Civic
Then it won't be a problem to let the rest of us trying to make a living out of Accrington Town centre, what these devices are and the measurements taken before and after. It might help retailers decide if the town is worth staying in or not.
I would say at least half of our business is made up of people from out of town who one wayor another have been told about us. Several conversations with these customers have resulted in them asking us why we don't move to thier towns, surely the business would do better. without my obvious bias, Burnley in particular is becoming a more attractive business case for us.
Basically we are trying very hard to hold on until after May to see what the outcome is, but it becomes harder by the day when certain names are mentioned who are desparate to run us and many others out of town.
Hardly sounds like cutting edge technology.
Sometimes the door'll open, and one person goes through, othertimes it might be six people.
Plus the automatic doors open when no one is going in, or out.
Perhaps not, but someone could surely ask for those figures and be able to find out for themselves what the numbers were before Aldo and after Aldo!!!
Do they then divide the total by 2, (people also leave the market), or do they assmume that no one comes through the door on their own so multiply it by some mystical number that is plucked from the ramblings of a passing spiritualist?
I'm sure I could come up with a really expensive piece of kit that would give a more accurate figure, the only problem I could see would be estimating those missed because of the down time as someone would have to keep re-booting Windows.
(I suspect one of our 'techies', will like the above).
