It’s being reported by Councillor Bob Brookes (Conservative Member for Droitwich East) on social media, that Labour and Liberal Democrat Councillors on Droitwich Spa Town Council did not support a precept freeze on the town element of resident’s Council Tax bills.
This is not true.
All the Opposition Councillors supported the precept freeze which will be a matter of record on the minutes of the meeting when they are released.
The precept freeze was part of a wider budget vote in which there was an issue with a Neighbourhood Plan payment of £2,000.00 being earmarked for Councillor training.
Therefore, whilst all the Opposition Councillors (myself included) both publicly and explicitly support the precept freeze, we abstained on the vote for the budget in its entirety due to the issue on that Neighbourhood Plan payment because the Conservative group have, effectively, closed the Neighbourhood Plan for a third time and advised that this cannot be revisited until the amended South Worcestershire Development Plan Revision expected in 2023.
Conservative Councillor input to the Neighbourhood Plan has been poor at best and training for this issue has been offered for free by people with a vast amount of experience in this area. This offer has never been taken up and the inclusion of such a cost is spurious at best and, we believe designed to worry the residents of the town.
The refusal to remove this point from the overall budget was the principal reason for abstaining on the vote concerning the budget.
We have done this to highlight that payment issue as we want to deliver the best possible outcome for the town regarding a Neighbourhood Plan and the protections it can potentially offer the residents of Droitwich which have been denied to them by the Conservative group.
This has led to the many volunteers the group had feeling insulted, disenfranchised and, ultimately, leaving the group.
What Councillor Brookes also fails to mention is, that at the Town Council’s Resources Committee meeting on 17 January 2022, I raised an objection to the precept increase that was being proposed at that time which had been initially agreed by only Conservative Councillors, saying that any increase – however small – needed to be justified to the residents of the town and that we, as a Town Council, needed to be open and transparent with residents about the reason for any increase.
A week later the Conservative Group come back with a motion to freeze the precept – read in to and make of that what you will…
I once attended a meeting where Councillor Brookes said that there should always be an effective Opposition in politics at all levels. Perhaps what he really meant was there should only be an Opposition that knows it place?
If anyone wants to clarify anything that has been said here, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Councillor Alan Humphries (Labour)
Councillor Rod Hopkins (Liberal Democrat)
Councillor Nathan Griffiths (Labour)
Councillor Chas Murray (Liberal Democrat)