A MISUSE OF PUBLIC FUNDS?

Is council tax payers' money being given to a protest group to fight the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm?


Might that mean a rise in council tax bills next year?


Do YOU want YOUR tax money spent on a political campaign by nimbies who represent a minority of residents?


Let's try to answer these questions. To the first, the answer, it would appear, could be 'Yes'.


Some background: several months ago, Church Lench Parish Council collapsed. A mob of aggressive loudmouths had been holding up parish council meetings, demanding that 'something' be done about ScottishPower Renewable's plans to build a windfarm at Lenchwick. The protesters made it impossible for the parish council to carry out its business. The majority of the parish councillors resigned because of the abuse they were receiving for sticking to the rules. This allowed supporters of VVASP to take over Church Lench Parish Council.


A 'working party' has since been set up, apparently at the insistence of the new Church Lench Parish Council and their friends in VVASP. This 'working party' includes representatives from the parish councils of Church Lench, Norton and Lenchwick, Harvington, Hill and Moor, Fladbury, and Bishampton and Throckmorton. The 'working party' is essentially demanding a blank cheque from the parish councils to fund its activities. The Norton and Lenchwick Parish Council website states that its representative on the 'working party' will act in an advisory capacity to the Parish Council with regard to the [windfarm] planning application but will not participate in the Parish Council's response to Wychavon District Council regarding the application to ensure the Parish Council's integrity and credibility. Whatever can they mean?


Anyway, after much heated debate, Norton and Lenchwick Parish Council voted narrowly on Tuesday night to make a one-off payment of £750 - rather than the desired blank cheque - to fund this 'working party'.


Now, two things:


1) Parish councils receive a budget or 'precept' which comes from council taxes. The Windfarm Working Party is therefore asking for almost unlimited use of the annual precepts which have just been received by the parish councils in order to carry out its work. That money comes from council tax payers, who traditionally like to see it spent wisely.


2) The Windfarm Working Party's real purpose is unclear. Some parish councillors are insisting that it is only a perfectly innocent information-gathering/sharing body - which begs the questions: why do they need so much money? What information are they trying to gather? And why will at least one of the council reps not be allowed to vote on the Lenchwick Windfarm planning application? Other parish councillors are clear that the 'working party' has been set up for no other purpose than to fight the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. This could explain why reps might not be allowed to vote on the planning application - because they are already engaged in an anti campaign funded by YOUR parish council, which is surely a grossly inappropriate use of public money.


After all, one of the first things the working party did was to meet up with Peter Luff MP to discuss 'strategy'. What 'strategy' does the Windfarm Working Party need, unless it was set up simply to find grounds for opposing the windfarm proposal, using council tax money which has been given to the parish councils for other things.



No wonder Norton and Lenchwick Parish Council is trying so hard to preserve its 'integrity and credibility' - not to mention its impartiality - in the face of this kind of activity!


Parish councils are required to remain impartial and open-minded until a planning application has been submitted. If the Windfarm Working Party is already looking for ways of fighting the proposal - and using YOUR money in doing so - then it is jumping the gun. ScottishPower Renewables have not yet submitted a planning application. So any parish council which knowingly decides to fund a working party dedicated to frustrating the windfarm proposal is already guilty of prejudice and bias.


Another question: if the new Church Lench Parish Council is behind the creation of the Windfarm Working Party, how can we tell that it's not, in reality, a cover for VVASP? Especially if, as some local parish councillors insist, the working party's sole purpose is, like VVASP's, to challenge the windfarm plans.


In other words, how can we tell whether OUR money is being spent, one way or other, on VVASP's disingenuous campaign, regardless of whether we like it or not? A campaign which, as the polls carried out by three parish councils indicate, and a previous blog explains*, is supported by only a minority of locals.



(* See under entries for May - 'Can't they get any facts right?')


Harvington Parish Council has already created a 'Windfarm Budget' - this is the village where less than a third of residents expressed opposition to the windfarm - and agreed to fund 20% of a proposed background noise-monitoring exercise to run alongside that organised by ScottishPower Renewables**. They seem to think that SPR might tell porkies about the background noise levels in the planning application. Ha! There's paranoia for you.



(** Harvington PC minutes, May 2009)


But why should the Windfarm Working Party want the full allocation of parish council funds for this year? Remember: Church Lench Parish Council and VVASP are joined at the hip. Now, their offspring, the Windfarm Working Party, wants to spend as much of your money as it can lay its hands on to carry out some vague sort of research. Could something sinister be going on?


Currently, VVASP are engaged in a massive fundraising exercise. They want to employ a barrister to fight on their behalf against the windfarm. And we all know how much barristers cost - even one prepared to defend VVASP's wild claims and objectionable tactics. They've also joined a European group of anti-wind activists ('wind-breakers'? - Ed.). Somehow, all this will have to be paid for. So wouldn't it be nice if Church Lench and the other five parish councils took some of the pressure off VVASP and covered the costs of its so-called fact-finding?


Is it possible that the parish councils are now being pressurised or tricked into putting significant amounts of public money into the anti-windfarm campaign, pointlessly replicating independent surveys, maybe even indirectly helping VVASP to engage legal representation, and therefore getting us to pay for their anti-social, time-wasting, undemocratic opposition to a perfectly rational, harmless and beneficial development?


Is that what you pay your council tax for?


Let's say that not all of the parish councils are as balanced as Norton and Lenchwick's. What if one of the parish councils (let's say, for sake of argument, that which represents VVASP Central - i.e. Church Lench) decides to spend its full precept on trying to find some slim grounds on which to challenge the application? That is, spending public money, not on what it was meant for, but on politically-motivated 'research'?


Okay, so they're getting the other parishes to chip in, but would a parish council that's heavily biased against the windfarm not be tempted to keep dipping into public funds for as long as they're available, if only to satisfy the noisier egos in the village that they're doing something?


And isn't challenging the windfarm proposal VVASP's job, not the parish council's - not at this stage, anyway?


Oh, but of course! There's suddenly an influx of public money into parish council coffers! And if it's difficult to tell where VVASP ends and the Windfarm Working Party begins, just think of all the ways that public money - tax payers' money - could be diverted into trying to stop the windfarm!


If an irresponsible parish council were to write the Windfarm Working Party a blank cheque to do VVASP's dirty work, how would they meet the costs of other commitments? How can the additional expenses of unnecessary 'information gathering' be covered by a precept which was calculated to provide for the ordinary needs of the parish council? What about the things that money is meant to be spent on? Does nothing matter to some of these people, other than fighting the windfarm by any means, fair or foul, and preferably with YOUR money?


And what if one or more parish council's channelling of your money into a political cause meant that, next year, EVERYBODY's council tax bill saw an increase to cover the overspend achieved by councillors who don't know the meaning of the word 'impartial'?


It's obvious what it would mean - that we, the people, many of whom are all in favour of the Lenchwick Windfarm, would have seen our own tax money spent on a misguided attempt at fighting the proposed windfarm, purely for the benefit of privileged individuals in the Lenches, and without our knowledge or say so, and that we could yet see our council tax bills rise because OUR money has been wasted on somebody else's irrational campaign.


I would urge everyone to question their parish councillors about these developments. It would seem that, under the auspices of an 'information gathering' working party, the anti-windfarm lobby is getting its hands on YOUR money for its own ends.


Ironic, really. The same people have pooh-poohed Scottish Power's offer to make thousands of pounds available annually to the local parish councils when the windfarm is up and running. The VVASP goons have referred to this as a 'bribe'. Now, it would appear, they would rather spend YOUR money fighting their selfish little battle than accept money for the community from a windfarm developer.



So, if you want to see your tax money spent responsibly on worthwhile community projects, insist that your parish councillors don't use the precepts to fund VVASP's demented campaign, even if it is disguised as a 'Windfarm Working Party'.