Dear Madam
Kington Chamber of Trade has informed Kington Town Council that they will not be involved with the usual Christmas Lights in Kington this year. A grant application was made to the Council in November last year for funding towards the lights for 2008. The Chamber has complied with all requests for further information and copies of invoices. Despite the Council resolving to grant £1000, no money has as yet been received. This is the first year that an application has been delayed or queried, previously an application made in November has been granted and paid within a few months.
During public questions at the last Council meeting, a member of the public, Mr Barry Trumper made an attack on the Chamber and its members. He made allegations that included overcharging on costs for electrical testing, replacement of bulbs, VAT and the costs of using the cherry picker. He asked for further delays in paying the grant. Mr Barry Trumper has obviously taken time to work out the costs of organising and erecting the lights in Kington.
Kington Chamber of Trade challenges Mr Trumper to organise the Kington Lights to the same standard in all the streets and with the same insurance cover for this year. It is assumed that he would be eligible to apply to Kington Town Council for a grant towards his costs, although it could take up to ten months to be processed and agreed, and longer to be paid.
Should he manage to do this at a cost of less than £1000 and supports this with invoices, Kington Chamber of Trade will pay the difference back to Kington Town Council out of the grant for last year if it is received. Any costs he incurs over any grants received he should pay himself, as do the Chamber every year.
Yours faithfully
The Committee of Kington Chamber of Trade
Hi there. My little helpers have been mapping my Christmas route and tell me they can’t see Kington from the night sky. Could you pop some Christmas lights on please, so I can see where to land?
Ta very much, Santa.
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You may be interested in reading this email I sent today.
20/11/09
Clerk, Mayor and [some] KTC members.
cc MWJ & HT
After the heartening small item I read in yesterday’s Hereford Times re Christmas Lights are definitely ON, but the later Mid Wales Journal was less certain “There is a glimmer of hope that Kington could have some Christmas Lights…..”, I am left rather confused. Can you help me?
So which is correct? I know Karen Evans has my respect for accuracy, but the HT were told “something” how else would they know about the “£2,000″ figure, as ONLY the MWJ bothered to attend (despite their reporter being ousted out into the dark, cold, only slightly wet night, whilst ‘favoured’ councillors were invited to relax a while seated in the comfortable, warm, well lit dry clerk’s office, when they went out – presumably for a Personal ‘Interest’ reason on clerk’s “incremental” (sic) Pay Rise item. I digress).
So the Question must be asked, WHO told the HT WHAT? Surely only a Councillor or the clerk?
If the clerk, precisely WHAT statement was made? Why are the two reports so different?
IF a COUNCILLOR, WHO? Were they AUTHORISED to speak? What were they authorised to say, and what did they say?
There seems a serious error or misleading “spin” of the long suffering public somewhere?
An urgent reply would be appreciated, as the Black Board readers I am sure would like to know! http://kingtonblackboard.org/2009/09/kington-christmas-lights-2/comment-page-2/#comment-269
I see the KBB carried the news first, and correctly! Again. Well done BB.
Note to Moderators: Perhaps KBB can carry Agendas & Minutes of KTC as the ill-advertised F&GP has not appeared on the web site yet, nothing new there, Agendas DO appear long after meetings – but when it only costs £495-65 EVERY year (Upper Bridge Enterprises – F&GP Agenda 16/11/09 6i) we can’t have everything!
I recall Kington Town Council was the butt of jokes at the Eardisley pantomime last Christmas, please lets not give them the chance of an encore! (Fair do’es to them, no grudge held, I’m sure we would do the same if you gave us the chance, but this is YOUR Town as well as ours!)
Regards,
Chris Marsden
btw, if anyone has any information ‘In the Public Interest’, accurate, topical and prefers to forward to me rather than the BB, I shall be please to investigate ‘guido fawkes style’ and air if safe legal and decent to do so, chris.byways@gmail.com
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Don’t believe all that you read in the papers ……….
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From today’s Hereford Times:
“Kington Town Council has confirmed Christmas Lights will be put up in the town this year. Decorations should be up by the end of this month after councillors agreed to meet the £2,000 cost at a meeting this week”.
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Yes it seems so, very much. Not even a mention of it being a nice option to disassociate, let alone a vote on it! (Although not elected, with only 6% of vote one person does seem to hold a lot of influence, can’t see why?)
I would have thought this is making a rift to the Chamber of Trade for no reason?
(I think they should run the Council, and no, I’m not a member!)
Insulted, short changed, delayed payment, late in deciding what to do for this year, and wont apologise or disassociate)
There was a well reasoned argument why they should be able to spend £2,000 (twice last year’s grant) and not get competitive quotes. It’s because time is short, as Christmas must be coming a bit early this year, unfortunate that!
So if contractors can do it for £2,000 we will have a magnificent display (What did you say Ross spent, £8,000 or £11,000 was it on their lights?). Perhaps KTC should ask CoT to be their contractor, would that work? (payment up front this time Eh?)
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As there is no news from the council meeting of last Monday, we can only assume that councillors are still associating themselves with Mr Trumpeer and therefore going it alone.
Maybe the Clerk should use this site to kep us informed – or is that not part of his job discription, or does he need a pay rise to do this?
I think we should be told
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Thanks Kingtonian – didn’t someone say they were going to organise a petition to reduce the number of councillors so we can have democratic elections in 2011? If that happens, I’m in!! No fluff!!
Whats happening with the lights now – it’s been some time since anyone said anything?
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Oh yes,but you can’t say that, it’s off topic.
Just ask WHY the council have not dissasociated itself – as per the Minuted Resolution to do so – from the comments made, it seems to condone them! The whole council say they want them, put have done everything it can to frustrate them! Why does one un-elected person have such undue influence over how the Town is run, even down to the Christmas Lights? He did after all only Poll 6% of the vote at the last election.
IF there are no Christmas Lights, then the call for the WHOLE council to resign made at the Burton Public meeting on 19/2/09 was spot on: 140 for all to resign and stand for DEMOCRATIC elections, NONE against, 4 Abstentions (for valid reasons i.e. Councillors who could not pre-judge the issue). All the good, honest councillors such as Celia – see Allotments thread) and at least 1/2 of them would be re-elected, the other half shown exactly what the Town thinks of them conspiring to ensure we have no Lights this Christmas. We really can’t hang on to 2011.
This is the problem – TOO MANY councillors – 15, so even the ones having caused so much harm get back in year after year – no competition, no need to serve, just do it for their Glory. Sorry, you are in the Dark this year – very visibly. You have fluffed it.
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Restrictions on the clerks office opening hours? And I see from elsewhere on the Blackboard they are thinking of giving him a pay rise?!!?
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Thank you to the many readers who responded to the last moderator comment and sent the question posed on 7th September 2009 in.
Questions to Kington Town Council Monday September 7th
Madam Mayor,
My questions are upon the Agenda item on a grant to Kington Chamber of Trade towards Christmas lights, this grant was proposed not withstanding the letter from the Chamber of Trade to the effect that it had withdrawn from the Christmas lights. Councillor Grant, bringing the subject up at a meeting, stated that he could only find £741 directly attributable to the lights but none the less proposed that a grant of £1000 be recommended to the full Council.
I was left wondering whether he intended the surplus £259 to go towards aperitifs for the Chamber of Trade party.
I asked for a copy of the grant application and the supporting financial items to check the accuracy of the above.
I received a one-page grant application from which nothing is at all clear from the application that seems incomplete, with pages possibly missing. I find that this one page is not an application for a grant for Christmas lights unless chairs are being provided for people to sit and gaze in wonder at the spectacle! I am at a loss to know what exactly it is other than an attempt to extract money from Kington Town Council. Again it specifies total costs of £1,855.00 but without an actual grant figure. Perhaps they are relying on the generous interpretation of others on the Council in this matter? This is clearly not acceptable.
Time and again Councillor Widdowson had the grant application for a grant to the Kington Museum sent back, and quite correctly to my mind, because it was incorrect. Will you please send this back for a correct and unambiguous grant application to be made so that Councillor Grant will know the proper figures to arrive at when he deals with them at a later date?
There are inconstancies in the one page ‘application’. The ‘Cherry picker and operator’ are Under Travel and are priced at £350 whilst the invoice clearly shows £250, a £100 error and as such clearly unacceptable in a grant application. Again the application clearly needs to be reworked.
More disturbing is the invoice to ‘Tom Bounds Electrical’, for £721.51 to our own Councillor Tom Bounds.
Since the period when a Councillor selected an absent Councillor for a Council job with the comment ‘it will be a nice little earner for him’, the Audit Commission has warned Kington Town Council on several occasions to be very diligent and vigilant in such matters and that it must be the norm that the Council does not employ a Councillor or pay them for goods and services except in very strict and dire emergencies.
Here there are many electricians around so the services of Councillor Bounds are not necessary. Also in the circumstances I feel that Councillor Bounds should have submitted the actual bill from the suppliers of his coloured lamps so as to have removed all doubt in the matter.
In the circumstances, with costs of £150 for testing and correcting lighting circuits, (plugging them in and changing dud lamps presumably), there being only six of them, I feel the Chamber of Trade should have received quotes for this. Also the insulation testing, presumably for continuity and Insulation, would have been done at the same time as the inspection, and, with modem equipment, this would have taken a matter of minutes for the whole six cables. Here the charge is £309.40.
I find it hard to believe that Councillor Bounds would in fact have charged so much to his own Chamber of Trade for so little effort.
That I have reasons to doubt this grant application and some of the accompanying invoices lie In the facts that here we have a rag bag of invoices and estimates ranging from 2006 to 2008, that I have never ever seen an Invoice labelled 4043a in my life and that in the one page ‘application’ there is £750.00 for Heat, Light, Power and bulbs.
There is evidence that the Christmas lights used electricity during the Christmas period each year but there is no evidence of Kington Chamber of Trade ever paying for it in spite of receiving grants from Herefordshire Council to pay towards the Christmas lights.
Further, Councillor Bounds is VAT registered and so would have reclaimed the VAT on his goods and services, was this VAT included in Councillor Grant’s calculations?
Will you please withhold this grant application until a thorough reworking and reappraisal of the application has been carried out?
Barrington T Trumper
Please note that this thread is about the Kington Christmas lights, not about this letter or response. Any comments about Mr Trumper or his question will not be approved – please stay on topic.
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Thank you moderator
Have you seen the comment from In The Dark on the previous string – ‘Oakapple – go and ask the Town Clerk for a copy of Mr T’s question – he should have one for you.’?
Unfortunately due to present restrictions on access to the Town Council and it’s Clerk, I am unable to attend the council office at the designated time.
*moderator comment* If the question is provided to the moderators, it will be posted. It is not the role of the moderators to go and find it.
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So, Kington Town Council had the opportunity to begin building bridges and fluffed it. Are the councillors who walked out, hiding behind perceived ‘personal and/or prejudicial’ interests therefore agreeing with the sentiments of ‘the member of the public’? Do they not appreciate what the Chamber of Trade have done in the past? Do they therefore question the integrity of the Chamber of Trade and Councillor Bounds?
I think we should be told.
I have asked before if the blackboard would publish the ‘question’ that was asked on the 7th September – if you can reproduce Coucil minutes, why not the question?
*moderator comment* All minutes and questions come from publicly available documents (e.g. council agenda, minutes etc). The moderators have not yet been able to find a copy of the question under discussion in council minutes or other sources online.
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