IT WAS meant to be the changing of the guard, but the changing of the time prevented newly elected councillors from being there.
In the local elections earlier this month, the Liberal Democrats seized control of Earley Town Council after they won 21 out of the 25 seats on offer. The whitewash saw the ruling Conservatives go down to just two survivors: Cllr David Chopping and Gurdeep Bhangra.
Labour’s leader is Cllr Sheena Matthews with Cllr Marion Shaw as her deputy.
Cllr Clive Jones, the borough council’s deputy Lib Dem leader, is the new leader of Earley Town Council, but his first meeting – the annual electors meeting – saw 19 out of 21 councillors miss it after confusion over the start times.
The annual council meeting started at 7.45pm on Wednesday, May 15, while the unadvertised annual electors meeting started half-an-hour beforehand.
In a comment on social media, Norman Jorgensen, who lost both his borough and town council seat earlier this month, said: “All four outgoing Conservative Chairman of Committees were there, although none were re-elected recently.
“On the other hand, only two of the newly elected Liberal Councillors, out of 21, turned up for the start of the meeting. One resident at the meeting commented that this was a poor show and a bad start from the new Councillors.”
But Cllr Jones defended his colleagues, saying that the only agenda they had received said that the meeting started at 7.45pm.
“We were sent an agenda for the annual town meeting, and not the town electors meeting,” he said.
“It isn’t good practise to hold the two meetings on the same date, but for whatever reasons the Conservatives decided to hold them together. Next year, we will take the town council’s advice and hold them on separate days.
“I’d like to make the point that the meetings were held together for their own personal convenience, even though they were advised not to.
“I guess they started on time just to make a point. It is a very shabby attempt at political point scoring.”
He added: “We were told there would be an electors’ meetings, but we didn’t know the timing of it. It sounds quite silly. Had we known, I’m sure most of the councillors would have been there on time, although some would have been coming in straight from work.”
At the electors meeting, cheques were presented to two charities nominated by the outgoing mayor, Brian Wedge. They were Thames Valley Air Ambulance and ARC counselling.
At the annual meeting that followed, Cllr David Hare was elected as mayor of Earley Town Council and Cllr Anne Bassett is his deputy.
