MISSING, Tory Councillors go walkabout.

With all the furore surrounding the flouncing out of the entire Tory contingent of Sompting Parish Council, you could have almost missed the fact that another three Tories have disappeared from Lancing Parish Council as well.

If you live in one of the relevant wards that is no longer represented, you have the right to call for a by-election to replace these councillors before the local Tories replace them with their own mates.

Details HERE.

Looks like this raises a few other questions as well, Here are the minutes from the March 5th meeting of LPC.

Obviously if Cllr Hamblin is having health issues then that is her business, however the other two are also Adur District Councillors. Not that you'd notice as they appear to have only attended two council meetings in the last 18months, (just enough to ensure the continuation of their allowance payments).

So, the bloke who looks a bit like Dara O'Briain and his overtly equine wife appear to have done a bunk, yet the ADC website still lists them as councillors for Mash Barn and Manor wards respectively.

Although the minutes announcing their departure was made only a couple of weeks ago, it is written in the past tense and as they haven't attended a LPC meeting since Nov 13, or an ADC meeting since Oct 13, they could have been gone for months.

Surely it is the responsibility of Adur council and the local Tory party to inform residents when they are no longer represented, they were kind enough to let me know after all, when they decided that their job only involved representing people that weren't me.

Yes, your local council can't even be bothered to inform you when their councillors and fellow party members leave you in the lurch and it demonstrates their clear arrogance when these councillors could do a bunk without so much as a "It's been lovely taking your money and doing sod all to earn it representing you, but we're sodding off to Essex" letter.

What concerns me is, are they still being paid their allowances? Surely the day they left they ceased to be councillors and payments should have stopped immediately, and by failing to inform ADC of their departure and if they received payments after this date it amounts to fraud, and this should be immediately reported to the police for a full and transparent investigation.

What is more important is, if you live in Manor or Mash Barn wards you are a councillor short now, (although Mrs Horsie was up for election in May anyway so you may want to wait) and have the right to call a by election to replace the deserters. Give the Electoral Services Dept. a call to find out how to do this.

You never know, they may even not know about the missing councillors and may need a little encouragement to see if these people are still taking our money and someone needs to have a word with Mr Plod.

ATAB
I CBM