Hemsworth Town Council Meeting 2 February 2023…

Kenyon, Eccles and Draper around and around in Circles…

Firstly, Ferret would like to congratulate Lyn Morton (Green party) who was co-opted to fill the vacancy on Hemsworth Town Council.

Thursday night, once again saw Jim Kenyon, Jean Eccles and their cabal members plumb to new depths, to avoid facing up to the reality of their mismanagement and failure to look after our finances since May 2019.

Budget 2023/24

The Town Clerk – Alan Draper had previously recommended to Councillors the need to increase the precept by a modest sum, a far cry from the promised £200,000 a year reduction parishioners had been promised by the Kenyon, Womersley and Eccles cabal in their election manifestos back in May 2019.

The increase was now needed, due to the poor financial mismanagement of Independent Hemsworth Town Council since their election back in May 2019 and the amount of the money they had spent over and above the precept which had left the reserves almost dry.

The Independent Cabal had other ideas, Jim Kenyon being the magnificent mathematician again, doing his best to count on his fingers and as always rewriting history.

Apparently the official accounts are wrong, as the cabal are financial geniuses and he went on to prove it by explaining how he can spend the same money over and over again.

Ferret expects this is by the use of the fictional accounts he keeps in his head (and the loft).

He was corrected by both Donna Moran (Labour) and Maxine Hird (Labour) who inherited the Finance Committee from the Independent Cabal in May 2022 and have worked tirelessly since then to try and unravel the disastrous unbudgeted spending spree that he had engaged in since May 2019.

We are all well aware of the hundreds of thousands of pounds spent on converting the family oriented Lakeside Café into a ‘60s pub complete with prison fenced courtyard and not forgetting the legal fees.

In Maxine’s words, “We go round and round in circles, how many times has he spent this (same) money? We haven’t got the money he is asking to spend.”

He even breached confidentiality by informing the meeting of an as yet, unapproved tender that had not even been discussed. This is not the first time he has done such as thing, more on that shortly.

Even the previous Chair of the finance committee, Jean Eccles waded in, probably because she still has a lift to sell and claimed the money needed spending on their “improvements”.

Ferret can think of many words as to what the money was spent on and somehow “improvements” isn’t one of them, not even in the top one hundred.

Councillors Moran and Hird insisted spending must be watched and kept in check so the new Town Council in May 2023 would not be left with even bigger problems.

Of course all of this went over Jim Kenyon’s head, as he is never wrong – is he?

Following a vote, the councillors approved a budget of  a below inflation increase which will mean approximately £4 PER YEAR on a Band A house.

Obviously, this increase SHOULD NOT be needed at all, but Ferret accepts it is needed to try and bring our facilities back to the level they were at prior to May 2019.

Public Question Time

Members of the public asked some very interesting and important questions at the meeting.

A lady asked why item 7c had been moved to exclusion as it was her right to have it heard in public.

Jean Eccles tried to shut her up.

The case involved councillors Kenyon and Hirst breeching confidentiality.

It transpired Alan Draper had advised Jim Kenyon to apologise, he of course refused as he can never be wrong can he?

The ICO and Wakefield Council’s monitoring officer had made 11 recommendations, one of which was Kenyon should apologise to the people whose confidentiality he had breached.

But Kenyon being Kenyon had read one line in the report where they said they would be taking no further legal action and once again decided he could ignore the recommendations as that line of a few words meant he had done nothing wrong.

Donna Moran asked Kenyon if he would apologise on moral grounds if not legal?

Kenyon’s response was, blah blah blah – NO.

One comment heard from a member of the public in attendance:

“What he needs is some porridge”.

Ferret fully supports that view, as he clearly hasn’t taken heed from the ICO and Monitoring Officer with his outburst not 20 minutes earlier re the tender.

The Christmas float was raised and Draper was asked if he had done due diligence regarding the float being driven around the community.

Jean Eccles, with her mystic powers must have foreseen this question coming, like a flash the words came from her mouth, “I’m stopping you here, the police are involved, it’s up to the police investigation”

However, the resident persisted with one more try, stating “It would appear, if you had done due diligence the police wouldn’t be involved”.

Jean Eccles retorted “the police are involved” once more.

Case temporarily closed, for now.

We’ve all heard about Alan Draper and his reluctance to answer even the most straight forward of questions, well here’s another one.

A lady asked about his failure to answer the question when he was asked if Matthew Wibberley, the contractor, who built the bonfire for the firework display, with pallets, had insurance cover in place.

Draper replied they didn’t ask if it was in place but asked for a copy that he didn’t have!

Ferret believes that for due diligence, Draper should have made a copy for the council’s records in case of any incident or even a request for information.

As for not answering the question, those circles keep getting bigger.

Finally, Ferret would once again like to thank our good Councillors for voting to remove the illegal gate which was installed by the cabal mafia back in 2019.

Kenyon, Eccles and Draper around and around in Circles, Ferret believes it’s way past the time they were flushed down the pan…