On Thursday evening. Ferret witnessed an Independent Town Council meeting that has even more convinced Ferret, that the time for this Council to go is long overdue.
A new mouthpiece now sits at the top table, propped up on one side by “silent” Stanley Wilson, who is still yet to find his voice in a Town Council meeting and on the other by a Town Clerk, who has now well and truly shown where his true allegiances lay.
Unfortunately it is not for this Community and the rules and regulations his position of office is supposed to uphold: Is it Mr Draper?
The new Chair struggles with words longer than 4 letters and is seemingly ignorant of Town Council policies and procedures when it comes to ensuring the cabal policies are carried, whilst our well paid Town Clerk, whose job it is to proffer advice to the council becomes temporarily deaf and blind to all that is happening around him.
The meeting was informed that a quote had been obtained to resurface the paths at the Waterpark and it was a staggering £45000.
There was no money in the budgets for this and if approved it would have to come from “Reserves” again.
How and why was money not included in this year’s budget for this essential work?
The budget was only finalised, approved and this year’s first instalment paid to the Council only a few weeks ago?
The Town Council heard that many people are falling and some have even been hurt by the condition of the footpaths and the car parking area and this has been known by the Council for a very long time.
The reserves are fast becoming depleted.
There can be only one reason why this work wasn’t budgeted for and that was to hide the financial mismanagement of this Town council at the risk of causing injury to people.
An increase in the precept would have highlighted this council’s financial disasters even more.
Two further important issues need highlighting about the condition of the car park in the Waterpark, that also needs long known about and now urgent remedial work.
Does anyone else remember the last Chair of the council Jim Kenyon saying that the company doing the drainage work would be renovating the car park area after their work was finished?
Ferret clearly does and yet when he was challenged about this on Thursday evening, his story now changed from the whole car park to the area they were working on.
Another Kenyon lie that has come back to bite him.
Didn’t he also claim that it was these people that told him that the council (us) should clear the Eccles waterway for them, at our expense of course?
Another bite on the Kenyon backside, it really is true that when lies are exposed they come back to bite and hard.
What is so sad, bad and wrong by this debacle is that it is all so unnecessary and this essential funding should not need to be found.
The independent Council are now trying to hide behind the fact that the car park land is owned by WMDC and therefore implying that they should bear the cost of repair but let’s look at this more closely.
The main access road and car park area are owned by WMDC and the rest of the land by Hemsworth Town Council.
The Waterpark only came into being by WMDC agreeing to the land being used by the Town Council to create the Waterpark as we know it, at no charge.
Previous Hemsworth Town Councils levied a charge for parking but only to none residents, who they believed should contribute to the upkeep of a facility that was beneficial and used by many more people than lived in Hemsworth, Kinsley and Fitzwilliam.
Ferret believes that charge brought in about £35000 per year.
Independent Hemsworth Town Council scrapped that charge 3 years ago.
As the saying goes, “you do the Math”.
So what does the “I” stand for in Independent Hemsworth Town Council?
Inexcusable
Indefensible
Inept
Unfortunately there is more to follow…