Councillor Steven Watkins - email, reply and response.

23rd May 2011

Dear Richard,

Thanks for your email and apologies for the delay in replying.

Let me try to answer you as best I can, point by point.

1) It is unacceptable for any councillor not to talk to a resident, if they cannot for any reason at that particular time then arrangements should be made for a 'chat' at a future date.

2) Consultation has it's place, of course, but pertaining to the proposed Saxon development there was technically nothing to consult about at that stage in terms of the plans, which were an outline. You say that we cannot hold an outline and 'do what we like' with it, as it were. If this is true then I am astounded that councilors of far more experience than me would not know this, and I am eager to know the answer (I plan to speak to the Clerk tomorrow night on this as work commitments have not allowed me to visit the office this week, something I try to do regularly).
My first four years in office were of course a learning curve and at times I had to trust the judgement and knowledge of colleagues as well as attending courses.

3) There are no excuses for TC surgeries not being held, I will arrange one for July when I return fron holiday and make it a regular thing.

4) You do not have to exclude Cllr Vickers email, he has a lady at his office who prints off his emails for him and types any responses. I often contact him this way.

5) My manifesto promise to fight for a centrally-located health centre: My prefered choice would be a large development on Saxon Gate that would enable services currently performed at local hospitals to be done in Biggleswade. Saxon Gate is geographically the centre of Biggleswade and will be even more so on a population basis with the new development.
So was my manifesto promise misleading? I believe not, for there is sufficient room to explain fully. Let me make it clear that I WOULD NOT SUPPORT THE SAXON DEVELOPMENT UNLESS THERE IS PROVISION FOR A SMALLER DROP-IN SURGERY IN THE CURRENT TOWN CENTRE. This was an idea floated at the meeting attended by Dr Hollington and The Ivel Medical Centre Practice Manager and widely supported. I did indeed support the spending of £50,000 on this application and I am confident that this will look good value in the future.

6) 'The Consultation that can be ignored' aka the Town Plan, it is not suggested that this be ignored but the fact remains that there is opinion from some that this document should be treated as a gospel of decision making when 17% is hardly a resounding response. In fact, it is downright disappointing. Local election turnout is widely acknowledged to be poor at around 35% We will use the plan to inform our opinion but I will not be making decisions based solely on it.

7) I think that the minutes are comprehensive enough - public are welcome to see what exactly was approved for such as financial matters. If any member of staff is making this difficult then I would like to hear about it.

8) The website could be better I agree, though I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is 'a joke', more contact details, pictures of members and more info on what the council is up to would be a good start - though I am dubious that we would still achieve a decent hit rate.

9) I will not compare a TC serving 20ish thousad with Caddington or Oakley, who have very little in their remit. Potton and Sandy yes. I will have a look at what needs to done to achieve quality status and this is something that our new mayor might like to work towards in the forthcoming year. I will get back to you on this.

10) I have asked the Clerk for answers to your questions:

- The lights will not be repaired until the evenings draw in again (I am not hapy with this answer, the money is there and so again I will talk to him tomorrow evening)

- Council needs to approve the costs of a soil survey for the plans to advance on the new play equipment. I will be pushing for this to happen as I see no reason for this delay.


I hope this answers some of your points, feel free to get in touch again.

All I ask is that you do not take any of my answers out of context to put on to your blog, I am happy to answer any more questions from yourself or readers of your blog.


Best Regards,

Cllr Steven Watkins

11th May 2011

Hello Mr Mason,

I have enjoyed reading through the posts on your blog and I must say that whilst I do not agree with all that you have said I cannot deny that you have obviously put a lot of work in and the site is well worth a look for anyone who takes an interest in our town.
Allow me to make a point. On the heading of the blog you state that: "I am also trying to highlight subjects that your elected representatives would rather you did not ask questions about" and follow that contentious statement by saying: " I do my best not to comment or express my personal opinion on the blog". Well I hope you can spot the irony with the former and latter statements.
My point is that I do not know of a single town councillor or Central Bedfordshire member who avoids answering questions from the public.
Attendance at council meetings by members of the public is sadly quite poor, but we will answer any question put to us or find the relevent information.
I intend to ask the clerk to the town council to put members contact details on the website to make this easier.
My personal pledge is that I am happy to be contacted at any time by members of the public and during my first four-year term I had many conversations with townspeople on various subjects regarding the town.
I find it extremely humbling that people would give me their vote and have no intention of taking this support for granted.

Regards,

Cllr Steven Watkins (Cons)
Stratton Ward
Biggleswade Town Council

____________________________________________________________________

18th May 2011

Councillor Steven Watkins

Biggleswade Town Council

Stratton Ward

Thank you for you email. I do appreciate that you have taken the time to contact me. I am sorry for the delay in replying.

Your perception concerning town and district councillors is sadly not reflected in reality.

I had to pursue a town councillor (who has known me for 20 years) for an answer to a question. Prior to a council meeting they introduced themselves to me!! When I said who I was, the aggressive response was something like, you are the person who has been causing me all this trouble, and if you are not careful I will have to put my fishwives hat on. When they realised they were shouting and a number of people in room were watching, I asked if they wanted to continue and they walked away!

An elector at community liaison forum was asking a councillor a question whereupon his wife also a councillor dragged him away and said he hasn't got time to talk to you and went off to talk to someone else.

At a meeting when it was suggested that a public consultation exercise was carried out, a councillor said No No No, we are the elected representatives and we make the decisions. Another councillor added that consultation had become a buzzword and there is far too much of it.

These are just three examples, there are many more.

I was amazed at the Planning meeting on 8th March 2011 (you offered your apologies) that on the Code of recommended practice for local authorities on data transparency:

The Town Council RESOLVED that a letter be written to ask if this code of practice applies to Town Councils, as they are not mentioned in the list of definitions of ‘local authority’, and also to say that the code of recommended practice is a repetition of Town Councils own working practices.

What a joke! I can still hear Eric Pickles laughing.

Given this environment I am not surprised that whenever the Town Clerk is asked a question you have difficulty getting a straight answer.

Is there a reason why a council meeting has been arranged for a Wednesday? Response was no reason. Published date now changed to a Tuesday, now admitted as an error.

What are the surveyors doing over Kitelands? Answer, surveying.

If you have read the posts you will see this sort of thing happens time and time again.

You know that it took six months to get a copy of the accounts.

I should not have to keep going to the ICO to force the council to provide information. It does go down as a black mark against them.

You say you have had many conversations with townspeople on various subjects regarding the town, and your personal pledge is that you are happy to be contacted at any time by members of the public. Why is it that no councillors of Biggleswade, district or town hold surgeries and invite people in to talk to them like other towns and villages do? Perhaps you could make a start?

You now say that you will ask the town clerk to publish councillor's contact details, but why were they not published before? I published them last year because people were asking me how to contact their councillors. Following the elections I have an up to date copy and will publish these soon. I will exclude the email for Peter Vickers as I was told by Central Bedfordshire that he does not understand or want to use the internet or email.

It is apparent to me that some councillors and council staff do not understand parts of the planning and other processes that they make decisions on.You cannot "hold" a planning permission or get outline and then do what you want as some councillors seem to think. It does not inspire you with confidence. There are training courses for Councillors and staff, which were offered by Central Bedfordshire to the sitting councillors two months before the local elections!!

Attendance at Council Meetings is so poor probably because by now, people have realised that whatever they say to councillors they will not listen.

When they do get a chance to voice their opinion like over the Health Centre location, the council decides to do something else. You said in the election flyer "you will fight for a centrally located health centre, accessible to all". Where were you when the council decided to spend over £50,000 of our money on a doomed application for a health centre out of town? A decision that is not recorded in the minutes and appears to be outside the powers of the council.

One councillor suggested that as the response to this consultation had only been 17% it could be ignored

On most subjects in the minutes of the Council meeting, you haven't got a clue what is happening, without having the supporting papers or being at the meeting. Having done that regularly, I still read the minutes and think I must have been at a different meeting.

NALC say minutes should be minutes not hours but they should be meaningful.

Take an old standard that appears at all council meetings:

Financial Administration -

Members received and adopted the following accounts:

i. Detailed Balance Sheet to 28th February 2011

ii. Summary of Income & Expenditure.

iii. Current Bank Account, receipts and payments to 28th February 2011

What's the point recording it, it tells you nothing.

As far as the council web site is concerned it's a joke. There has been monies in the budget for several years that go unspent. The previous and current town clerk said it would be updated and I had a running battle to get the Agenda of meetings shown. A number of people have made constructive suggestions and offered help to get a good web site up and running but to no avail.

As a minimum there should be details of councillors and their contacts, copies of the accounts, the model publication scheme, and a newsletter. These are all things, plus a number of other things a quality council would do. To be a Quality Council the Town Clerk would need to hold either the Certificate in Local Council Administration (CiLCA) or the Certificate of Higher Education in Local Policy or Local Council Administration awarded by the University of Gloucestershire, but Biggleswade is not a quality council and apparently has no aspirations to become one.

As you know from the blog posts, Ampthill, Bolnhurst & Keysoe, Brickhill, Caddington, Dunstable, Great Barford, Henlow, Houghton Regis, Kensworth, Leighton Linslade, Northill, Oakley, Pertenhall & Swineshead, Potton, Sandy, Stotfold & Studham are all quality councils.

Have a look at some of the web sites and see what can be achieved:

http://www.henlow.net/

http://www.northillparish.co.uk/

http://www.pottontowncouncil.co.uk/

http://www.sandytowncouncil.gov.uk/

Now that you are one of my ward councillors, your starter for ten, can you tell me:

1. When are the Kitelands Recreation Ground lights going to be repaired and working?

2. When is the project for the new play equipment over Kitelands going to be progressed following the fiasco last year?

I have probably missed quite a lot, but I am sure you get a feel from where I and a lot of residents of Biggleswade are coming from.

regards

Richard Mason