Councillors’ behaviour triggers resident’s letter of complaint

A Thame resident who was in the public gallery during a meeting of Oxfordshire County Council, was so appalled at the behaiour of some councillors during a debate, that she has written a public letter to the Chair of the meeting, Cllr Les Sibley.

Elizabeth Barker

Mrs Liz Barker was watching a somewhat high octane debate to decide whether OCC would agree to take over drawing up a new Local Plan 2034, if offered, which a government minister is threatening to take away from South Oxfordshire District Council and handing over to them.

The Conservative Cllrs were broadly in favour of the take-over, whereas the LibDem and Green Party Cllrs were generally against SODC losing control over the Local Plan. There had been several public speakers opposed to the move, including Cllr Sue Cooper, the Leader of SODC.

Cllr Ian Hudspeth, Leader of the OCC, addresses the council

Mrs Barker wrote the following:

Dear Councillor Sibley
I write with reference to the full council meeting which you chaired on 11 February.

I was present in the public gallery and I unfortunately need to question the way in which the meeting was chaired.

Firstly, there was an incident in which the leader of the council, Ian Hudspeth, angrily called another councillor a liar and jabbed his finger at him. You quite rightly asked Councillor Hudspeth to withdraw the remark and not to point at other people in the chamber. Councillor Hudspeth refused to withdraw the remark but instead of you asking him to leave the meeting as I believe is the procedure in these circumstances, he was allowed to continue taking part for the whole of the rest of the meeting.

Secondly, insulting remarks were directed by councillors towards those of us in the public gallery and this went without any admonishment from you. The worst example of this was from Councillor Eddie Reeves who called us “malcontents“ and “a random assortment of ne’er do wells”. We naturally took exception to this, although I have to say we do not see ourselves as Councillor Reeves described but believe he was possibly simply insulting us as we do not agree with his point of view. Several of us politely called for respect to be shown. But rather than any reprimand whatsoever being given to Councillor Reeves, you asked those of us in the gallery who were being insulted to be quiet.

The abusive behaviour in the meeting on Tuesday was very concerning and gave the impression of a culture of bullying and a free for all. Please could you let me know if councillors will in future be barred from the chamber for not withdrawing inappropriate language when asked to do so and that they will be reprimanded for insulting behaviour directed towards members of the public gallery.

Yours
Liz Barker (Mrs)