Anger after parish councillors snubbed by Kirklees

Nov 6 2010 by Nick Lavigueur, Hudd Sat

AN angry councillor has slammed local governance changes as undemocratic.

Veteran parish councillor Jimmy Paxton hit out after town and parish councillors were snubbed by their Kirklees Council colleagues.

The Kirkburton parish councillor said he and his co-councillors had been told they could no longer play a part in area committee meetings.

The bi-monthly meetings, held to give local residents an opportunity to hear about developments in their communities, were re-organised by Kirklees Council last summer.

The controversial change merged several areas together meaning dozens of councillors were thrown together into new larger areas.

In the Heavy Woollen area the decision saw ward and parish councillors from Kirkburton, Denby Dale and Mirfield combined into a new Town and Valley committee.

But Clr Paxton, who represents the Flockton area, said Kirklees councillors had decided to exclude co-optees from Kirkburton Parish Council, Denby Dale Parish Council and Mirfield Town Council from the decision making process.

He said: “There’s nine of them (Kirklees councillors) and they said there would be far too many people if we were to be involved.

“It’s not democratic, Kirklees sent a letter out to us in May saying they wanted two representatives from each parish council but we’ve not had one saying they’ve changed their minds.

“I think it’s a disgrace that they’re doing this to us.

“Okay we never had a vote but we still had an input.

“They’ve invited us to the meetings but they’re open to the public anyway.

“They’re treating us like imbeciles.

“We know the areas better than they do so when we go to meetings we can bring things up that they might not know about.”

Chair of the committee, Clr Elaine Ward said there would have been too many people on the new joint committee to function properly.

The Denby Dale Tory said: “It was decided by the whole committee that nine was big enough. I’ve lost my co-optees too.

“We’ve had it clarified by the council and we were told we can do it.”

Clr Ward said parish councillors could still be involved in area committee projects in their areas if they wanted to be.