Page 16 - Demo

16 Phonebox Magazine | June 2025Mercury ReportIt was a humid and balmy evening for May%u2019s Olney Town Council gathering. This one came much later in the month than is normal as the Bank Holiday put paid to the fi rst Monday of May. Temperatures were certainly summery outside which, gave councillors their first decision of the night %u2013 what to wear?There was a selection of summer attire on show, which perhaps gave a glimpse of an Olney Town Councillor in %u2018holiday%u2019 mode: shorts, summer dresses, T-shirts, sports trainers and fl ip fl ops all made an appearance as councillors filed into the chamber. Not a suit, tie or blouse to be seen, as you might have expected 20 years ago, when things were more ordered and proper on council business.Chris Tennant made a late entrance %u2013 and for good reason: he wanted to show everyone how to do it in the fashion world. He cat-walked in with a neatly pressed office shirt up top, but a pair of casual shorts down below. Councillor Tennant had clearly decided to be a trend-setter tonight. And it was to good eff ect.Election of the MayorThere is a 15-minute open forum at the start of every meeting, but that quarter of an hour wasn%u2019t needed tonight as nobody from Olney%u2019s populace wanted to speak. So Mayor Debbie Whitworth quickly moved proceedings on to the agenda for the night. And item number One concerned her: election of a Mayor for the next term. Are there any nominations, asked the Mayor expectantly. Yes, I nominate Debbie Whitworth, said Richard Hillier. The Mayor looked pleased. Do we have any other nominations, she inquired. There was silence. There is no opposition, so do you accept, asked Town Clerk Jane Brushwood. I do accept, said Debbie to a round of applause.Next came the election of the Deputy Mayor. Are there any nominations, asked the Mayor. I nominate Mary (Prosser, the current Deputy), said David Chennells. There were no opposing nominations, and Mary also accepted. Cue more wild clapping. Apologies for absenceChris Shaw had sent his apologies. There were no declarations of interest. The minutes of the last meeting were approved.Ward splitThe Mayor brought forward the Ward Councillor%u2019s report because she wanted to introduce Peter Taylor from MK City Council%u2019s electoral services and give an update on a proposal to split Olney%u2019s wards into two: East and West. Peter is the electoral service manager who plans and organises elections within Milton Keynes and its surrounding area. He said he is looking at elections across the whole city with an informal consultation with parishes and town councils, but didn%u2019t get a response from Olney. Because of what we were hoping to propose, said Peter, we really wanted a view from the council before doing anything. What we don%u2019t want to do is propose something that is out of joint with what you think, he said. Deidre stepped in here. You say we have already been asked about this %u2013 we haven%u2019t, she said. You have had an email, corrected the Clerk. That seemed like news to Deirdre. It%u2019s informal at this stage, said Peter. Back to his notes, he went: Olney is currently split into two polling districts, so it%u2019s Olney West and Olney East, and we want to create those as two wards. It%u2019s split by the High Street at the moment.%u00a0Olney voters vote here at the Olney Centre, he said, and at the United Reformed Church, and that won%u2019t change. So why are we doing this, he asked. For a couple of reasons. One, when Olney has an election, for example in 2021, your council can have up to 15 councillors, but there were 22 people on the ballot paper, so that was quite inconvenient and diffi cult to administer.%u00a0 Secondly, when you had a by-election, that cost quite a bit too for the council here because you pay for by-elections, we don%u2019t, and the whole of Olney had to vote, whereas if that vacancy came from the east or the west, you%u2019re looking at half the electorate. So that%u2019s what we want to do and get a view on it. We won%u2019t consult the public, he added, we wanted to speak to local councillors and ward councillors before we get there. We%u2019re hoping to go with the draft proposal from 19th June, but we want to understand your views; you know the town much better than we do.%u00a0Some councillors are concerned about how that will be perceived among the residents, said the Mayor. Will there be different committees for the east and west, for example? We%u2019re down to 11 councillors at the moment, she added. If someone wants to bring something up with their councillor, they would go to their one on the east or the west, said Peter. The Clerk was shaking her head at this.I can see you shaking your head, said Peter. It doesn%u2019t stop you from working together like you do now, it%u2019s more administratively. I think it will create more work, said the Mayor.We have looked at this before, said Deirdre wearily, and actually it%u2019s totally unworkable. You could see Peter Taylor%u2019s shoulders drop as it dawned on him that this was not going to be an easy evening. There was a chair set aside for Peter%u2019s colleague, but they had failed to turn up. Peter was beginning to wish he%u2019d done the same thing.I hear what you%u2019re saying, said Deirdre, in a tone that signalled %u2018but I don%u2019t like it%u2019, but you know, if you have seven councillors on one side and eight on the other, it won%u2019t work. The way we are now, we are one council, we are unifi ed, it doesn%u2019t matter where you come from in Olney. We have struggled to get a full council in recent history, said the Mayor, and I fear that splitting the council into two wards is just going to give us another layer of complexity. And also, the ward structure could foster disunity.Could I just ask a question, interjected Christina Diamandopoulos with some urgency. Yes, said the Mayor. There was a short period of silence. Oh, what was the question, said Christina, wracking her brains. We waited. Still nothing came. Somebody else ask, and I%u2019ll try to remember it, she said.David Chennells spared Christina from further blushes by stepping in with something of his own. We don%u2019t have many contentious issues in Olney, he said, but when we do, we%u2019re very good at it. I can just see us having very contentious issues in our new estates and quasi-industrial units, and people falling out. And then you can end up with an election where you have 10 or 12 people from one ward and three in the other. So you end up with half an election and half not an election. And then the people who walk in feel a bit fraudulent because they haven%u2019t been put to the public. It was a rambling speech, but we knew what David meant: the council would not have been voted in entirely, in one go. I totally agree with Deirdre, he went on. The split you are suggesting looks very uneven in terms of not just the number of people, but the demographics of those people. On the west side of Olney you%u2019ve got a lot of new houses which will change the average age of the occupants, and then more traditional old-fashioned housing in the other half. If you split it%u2026How would you split it, asked Peter Taylor, genuinely curious. I don%u2019t know, replied David, not very helpfully, I%u2019d have to sit down with a map and work it out. And that%u2019s part of the consultation, said Peter. We are and have been working as a council extremely hard to integrate people as one, said the Mayor. We are trying to bring everybody together. It was a rallying cry designed to close ranks.Christina had now remembered her question and stuck up her hand again. We all hoped it would be worth the wait.It%u2019s about the public consultation, she said, does that mean that the residents will have the fi nal say?Oh dear, this had already been covered earlier. No, said Peter. So it%u2019s not really democratic, Christina replied. Unlike an election, in terms of fi nal say, said Peter, there%u2019s guidance and terms of reference that we have got to work with. It should be practical in terms of what it does. It%u2019s been asked before, but yes, the fi nal decision will rest with the full council in Milton Keynes.That didn%u2019t sit well with Olney%u2019s town councillors. That last comment sounded like they could be railroaded into something they didn%u2019t want. Time to circle the wagons