{"id":623,"date":"2021-06-22T21:41:40","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T21:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flooding.london\/rts\/?page_id=623"},"modified":"2021-06-24T06:57:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T06:57:11","slug":"wraysbury-parish-council-has-no-confidence-in-two-ward-councillors","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/flooding.london\/rts\/wraysbury-parish-council-has-no-confidence-in-two-ward-councillors\/","title":{"rendered":"Wraysbury parish council has ‘no confidence’ in two ward councillors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wraysbury parish council has ‘no confidence’ in two ward councillors <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 – Windsor Observer 22\/6\/2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

By\u00a0<\/em>James Bagley\u00a0<\/em>Local Democracy Reporter<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

(From left) Cllrs Gary Muir and David Cannon<\/p>\n

AN ANGRY parish council have said they have \u2018no confidence\u2019 in their two ward councillors after they \u201cfailed\u201d to support a petition on an essential flood defence scheme.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wraysbury Parish Council\u00a0(WPC)<\/strong>have passed a motion in no confidence in Datchet, Horton, and Wraysbury councillors David Cannon (Con), lead member for public safety and parking, and Gary Muir (Con), who is also deputy mayor.<\/p>\n

The motion made yesterday, June 21, read they \u201cfailed\u201d to support their constituents by abstaining from their\u00a0River Thames Scheme <\/strong>(RTS) petition at a full Royal Borough council meeting in April.<\/p>\n

The borough was kicked out of the \u00a3640 million flood defence scheme, which would\u2019ve protected properties from Datchet to Teddington, by the sponsoring group last July after failing to fund its part of the scheme, channel one, via a flood levy.<\/p>\n

The Royal Borough was asked to contribute around \u00a352 million for channel one but only committed to \u00a310 million.<\/p>\n

Wraysbury, along with Datchet, Horton, and Old Windsor parish councils, demanded the council to re-join RTS via a petition, which nearly got 1,600 signatures.<\/p>\n

However, lead councillors and officers said at the April meeting the council cannot support the scheme as it is \u2018unaffordable\u2019 and would cost \u00a31.3 million per year for 50 years to repay the borrowing.<\/p>\n

When it came to the vote, Cllrs Cannon and Muir abstained.<\/p>\n

Below: Map of River Thames Scheme showing Flood Channel Section 1<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Link to Map of the River Thames Scheme<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

At the WPC meeting, parish councillors vented their anger at the two ward councillors for \u201cnot supporting\u201d their petition when it came to the vote \u2013 despite signing it.<\/p>\n

Cllr Cannon said he told the parish council \u201crepeatedly\u201d that channel one was no longer in existence after the council was kicked out with no option to re-introduce it.<\/p>\n

The Datchet, Horton, Wraysbury representative added the funding was always subject to a flood levy being imposed since the council committed to RTS in 2017 but, despite lobbying, the government did not allow this.<\/p>\n

Cllr Cannon also defended the way he voted, saying the wording of the proposal was to note the council cannot fund the scheme without \u2018flexible\u2019 council tax or external funding \u2013 not to re-join RTS.<\/p>\n

However, he added the Royal Borough is liaising with the Environment Agency to find alternative solutions.<\/p>\n

This didn\u2019t slide with the Wraysbury parish councillors, calling it \u201cna\u00efve\u201d of the borough to rely on government with no plan B while promising that their part of the scheme would happen.<\/p>\n

They also criticised the Royal Borough for injecting millions of pounds into other projects, such as the newly built Braywick Leisure Centre, rather than prioritising the RTS.<\/p>\n

Wraysbury parish councillor Lora Andrew said: \u201cIf they [the council] didn\u2019t have that money in addition to everything else they wanted to spend on, then everything else should\u2019ve gone by the wayside.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat money should\u2019ve come first because it is lives, not a fancy pool, not a nice car park \u2013 this is people\u2019s homes and livelihoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis should\u2019ve been a bigger thing a long time ago and why weren\u2019t questions asked about what do we do if we don\u2019t get government funding? Where is this money going to come from if we can\u2019t get it from a flood levy?<\/p>\n

\u201cThose questions weren\u2019t asked, and they should\u2019ve been asked at the time when we were spending frivolous amounts of money on leisure centres and car parks that we, as Wraysbury, and the east of the borough will get zero use of or very little use.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd whoever was in there at that time should hang their head in shame for not querying it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parish councillors unanimously voted in favour of the motion of no confidence, which was put forward by fellow ward councillor Ewan Larcombe.<\/p>\n

After the vote, the chair of WPC, Cllr Margret Lenton said: \u201cI think you need to appreciate, councillors, how deep the discontent \u2013 actually I would put it higher than that \u2013 in Wraysbury.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you looked at my email box, there\u2019s a feeling they are on their own. We know how near we came to fatalities at the floods last time.\u201d<\/p>\n

END OF EXTRACT<\/p>\n

Link to source https:\/\/www.windsorobserver.co.uk\/news\/19390756.wraysbury-parish-council-no-confidence-two-ward-councillors\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wraysbury parish council has ‘no confidence’ in two ward councillors \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 – Windsor Observer 22\/6\/2021 By\u00a0James Bagley\u00a0Local Democracy Reporter (From left) Cllrs Gary Muir and David Cannon AN ANGRY parish council have said they have \u2018no confidence\u2019 in their two ward councillors after they \u201cfailed\u201d to support a petition on an essential flood defence scheme. ….  Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/flooding.london\/rts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/623"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/flooding.london\/rts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/flooding.london\/rts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flooding.london\/rts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flooding.london\/rts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/flooding.london\/rts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":627,"href":"http:\/\/flooding.london\/rts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/623\/revisions\/627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/flooding.london\/rts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}