Agenda item

A member of the public congratulated Councillor Tony Capozzoli for standing as a candidate in the recent General Election and he asked why the declaration of the result of that election had taken so long on 13^th December?

The Chief Executive advised that there had been a number of factors which led to the delayed declaration of the General Election result the previous week.  They included a new counting procedure, a higher electoral turnout, new counting assistants and a new type of ballot paper which officers had found more difficult to count.

In response to a question from a member of the public regarding the procedure adopted by the Council for moving discussions into confidential session and excluding the press and public, the Monitoring Officer acknowledged that the Council did have an informal style but any business to be conducted in confidential session was clearly identified on the Agenda papers and it was for Councillors to accept the officer’s recommendation to exclude the press and public from any part of a Council meeting.  She noted the matter had been raised previously and would ensure the procedure was clear in the future. 

A resident of Allowenshay said they had problems with their water supply since 2010 which was now deemed a danger to health and a two day court hearing was set for early January 2020.  She referred to the costs involved and said they had asked for the hearing to be dealt with by written representations so each party would bear their own costs but this had been refused by the Council.  

The Monitoring Officer said she would discuss the matter with the Leader and Chief Executive.  The Ward Member, Councillor Sue Osborne also asked to be kept informed of proceedings.

A resident of Martock questioned the delay to the start of the Regulation Committee meeting earlier that week and the number of substitute Councillors who attended.

The Chairman of the Regulation Committee said it became apparent before the meeting started that there would be a challenge to the training of the substitute Councillors attending the meeting and so he delayed the start to take legal advice on their eligibility.  This was confirmed as acceptable by the Monitoring Officer.  There were a number of substitute Councillors as the committee members were unable to attend.

A resident of Martock said he felt the wishes of the developers had taken precedence over local residents at the Regulation Committee meeting.  He also questioned the untidy state of Wyndham Street in Yeovil.

Councillors Peter Gubbins and Tony Lock responded and acknowledged that furniture had been left on the street but it had been reported and should have been removed. They said the regeneration of the area would be part of the Yeovil Refresh project.

Two further residents of Martock spoke in opposition to the Regulation Committee decision earlier that week.  They said the site proposed for housing was currently flooded and the local doctors surgery was struggling to cope with the existing demand. 

In response to a question from Councillor Neil Bloomfield, the Monitoring Officer confirmed that the Council did not have the ability to make any councillor training compulsory and although previous Member Training programmes had been presented to Council for confirmation, if a councillor failed to attend training then legally there was no recourse although there was recourse at a political level by the Group Leaders.  The email sent to Councillors on 28 May stated that Regulation Committee training was compulsory as this was an aspiration to receive full training but this had no legal force.  She confirmed that the Chairman of the Regulation Committee had consulted her on the eligibility of substitute Councillors and her advice was that they were allowed in the Council’s Constitution. 

The Leader of Council said the Council were the Local Planning Authority and they had to meet the Government’s national housing targets.  If applications for housing were refused but subsequently overturned on appeal by the Planning Inspectorate then the houses would be built anyway.  The Planning Inspectorate had made it clear that if over 10% of planning appeals were overturned then they may step in and all planning decisions would be taken away from SSDC and made in London or Bristol.