Liberal Democrat Councillors are not attending committee meetings taking key decisions affecting residents lives. This is the inevitable conclusion from an analysis by the Conservative group on Stratford District Council of attendance for the last 6 months. It shows the bottom third of Councillors not showing up for meetings they were scheduled to attend were, with one exception, Liberal Democrats.
While there can be very good reasons for a Councillor not being able to make a meeting, particularly those few with full-time jobs this is all just too coincidental.
The issue is particularly acute for the planning committee which, of all meetings, is most directly important to residents. There are invariably empty seats where Liberal Democrats should be. To make matters worse they routinely fail to arrange for a substitute Liberal Democrat to attend, on some occasions, almost meaning there were too few Councillors for the meeting to go ahead. It has not happened yet, but that is just good fortune. The Conservatives have raised the issue of attendance at planning committee with senior Council officers.
Councillor Daren Pemberton, Conservative Group Leader said “At the same time as carpet bombing the district with leaflets telling residents how your Lib Dem Councillor is campaigning on issues completely outside the scope or control of the Council, they are not turning up to decide on unpopular planning applications. This has been a persistent theme for 2 years since they became the administration. It is now difficult to escape the conclusion that it suits them politically for difficult decisions to be made by Conservative and, to a lesser extent Green and Independent Councillors so that we can be put in the frame for these decisions while they portray themselves as being on the side of residents. Frankly, this has to be called out and to stop because residents are being short changed by the failure to Lib Dem Councillors to do what they were elected to do. In May 2023 the public got what they wanted, but have not got what they deserve.”
