Buerton Parish Council

From Aljeana Baddley

Buerton Parish Council previous chair

What is it like for a Parish Council & it's Councillors when things go wrong?

All Parish Councillors are volunteers they give their time for free, knowledge & their expertise& most importantly their dedication to support & improve the local community.

In most cases your councillor is a friend or neighbour that you have encouraged to join your Parish Council. Most Parish Councils like Buerton are small communities where everyone generally knows everyone.

Buerton Parish Council had a stable core of councillors that some had held their position for many years with newer councillors joining as vacancies came about.

Buerton Parish Council has had 5 resignations out of 8 councillors in the last month!

So why & what has gone wrong?

Why have so many Councillors resigned?

There is no fraud or financial problems, there was no in fighting between the councillors, we

were a forward-thinking council with truly dedicated councillors your neighbours & your

friends.

So why have so many of us decided enough is enough?

Since Covid Buerton Parish Council has been subjected to various types of harassment from a small core of residents this was all since a proposed planning application for the Buerton old School where the Parish Council was being accused of selling off the Playing field which was totally untrue.

But from that time a few residents set about making it their aim to try & discredit the ParishCouncil & the councillors by being vexatious with bombarding the Clerk & Chair with numerous emails, requests & many anti Parish Council Facebook posts.

To date we had received 32 Freedom of Information requests on information that went back to 1902 to 2024 most of the information was publicly available but some came under the data protection act but they chose to send requests & not in a pleasant manner either. TheClerk received 100s of emails that had to be answered time & time again. All that time is a cost to residents.

Many hours were spent collating information for one person at no cost to them only the time of the councillor who cannot claim expenses.

Do you know

Residents can say & report freely what they like about councillors to the Monitoring Officer & we have no say.

2 Dedicated councillors were reported to the Monitoring Officer by a resident & no case was found but it is on their record that they have been reported & had to deal with the stress it caused.

Some councillors have been subjected to bullying & more recently a case of actual stalking& being reported to the police. Fortunately, the police sided with the councillor & offered the councillor support & are completing an investigation.

Most Parish Councils will say that residents struggle most with planning applications & development but being a proactive council Buerton developed a Neighbourhood plan which was approved in 2017.

More recently we had started the Neighbourhood Plan review as recommended to ensure our planning & development policies were fit for purpose with the new planning laws coming into place.

We recently conducted a village wide questionnaire & had a good response from residents but unfortunately some members of the steering group had a conflict of interest over the possibility that residents may wish the allocation of small building plots near them & decided yet again to set about discrediting the Parish Council & certain councillors.

Did you know?

As a parish councillor we have very little protection from abuse we have to abide by a code of conduct we cannot just do or say what we want, things take longer due to the due diligence & processes we have to follow. We have to ensure we are not bias & have no conflict of interest of items that we are dealing with.

The Parish Clerk/Financial Officer holds most of the power & control it is their responsibility to protect the council from failings by the councillors ensuring we adhere to strict codes &policies.

It has surprised me how some people feel it is ok to treat their parish councillors, regular threats written & sometimes verbal. For Buerton in comparison to other Parishes we had minor issues that were raised at our meetings we always tried to be open & honest maybe too open for our own protection. But it was never enough for a few residents they could never accept we were honest they had to twist things to suit their own agenda.

I personally have served over 10 years on Buerton Parish Council & until recently it has been a pleasure & what people should expect if they want to take on a role as a Councillor.

But since mid / end of Covid there was a change in people I would say the last 12 months in particular have been very difficult & unpleasant, as the ex Chair I can honestly say Buerton have lost some very good people due to a few self-minded residents.

Please Remember

Your Parish Councillor is your neighbour & your friend they do not deserve to be treated the way Buerton's Parish Councillors have been by a few. They know who they are & what their aims where & are possibly very happy with what they have achieved.

I understand there are cases where the councillors are at fault & yes residents have the right to approach the monitoring authorities if they feel misconduct or negligence has occurred but for Buerton this was not the case.