Popular misconceptions about Beverley Town Council
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From my discussions on social media it is obvious that some local residents are very misinformed about how their town council works
Recently I was discussing local issues on Facebook with some Beverley residents and a chap said to me that we Beverley Town Councillors earn £200,000 a year, which surprised me as to the lack of knowledge displayed. We don't earn anything from the town council. Therefore, I thought I would address some misconceptions about your town council.
1. Beverley Town Councillors are paid lavish allowances
Wrong. We receive no allowances. A few years ago there was a small allowance - £300 per annum I think it was - but the Lib Dems abolished it to save some money and as a gesture of solidarity with families struggling with high inflation.
The Mayor Of Beverley - who is also a town councillor - receives a small allowance of around £650 per annum for expenses. This hardly covers costs: petrol to get to civic engagements, dry cleaning of suits, donating to the charities which mayoral civic functions support.
2. Beverley Town Councillors do not do anything
Town councillors meet monthly and also there are several committees which meet regularly.
Full Council
The full Beverley Town Council meets monthly, and considers and makes decisions on all matters raised by its sub-committees. These range from financial decisions to events decisions. Meetings are open to the public.
Full council also decides on the award of partnership grants, matters pertaining to friendship arrangements with foreign towns and cities, and many other matters.
The Mayor of Beverley chairs full council meetings.
Policy and Finance Committee
P&F oversees the councils budgets and spend, and allocates funds to various expenditures. Its meetings are open to the public.
P&F deliberations include:
- management of Beverley's allotments
- running costs the council's premises at Well Lane, Beverley
- arrangements about computers and stationary for council staff
- setting of partnership grants
- overall allocation to funds to various costs
Planning and Environment Services Committee
PES meets monthly to comment on planning applications made to the East Riding Council and other matters pertaining to the environment in Beverley. Its meetings are open to the public.
PES matters may be the town's historic buildings and lamp posts, cobbled streets and so forth. Planning applications are not made to Beverley Town Council itself, and the town council can only make recommendations about planning applications, which are then sent back to the county council. The town council cannot make a planning decision; only the county council can do that. Sometimes the recommendations of the town council are ignored, much to the irritation of residents and councillors.
PES also looks into arrangements for Xmas festive matters such as street lights and Xmas trees.
Personnel Committee
This committee deals with confidential matters pertaining to town council staff, of which there are 4 of whom some are part-time. Matters of this committee are not discussed outside of the committee and its meetings are not open to the public. I have never sat on this committee and only know of the final decisions it makes, which are reported back to councillors, but never its deliberations.
Events Committee
This recently created committee looks ahead at future events and plans them in advance. Its meetings are open to the public.
Beverley has a good civic life and recent events have included the late Queen's Jubilee, the declarations of and Coronation of King Charles III and the 80th anniversary of VE day. All of these events in Beverley were partly down to the planning by the town council, in partnership with various other bodies such as East Riding Council, Beverley Civic Society, Beverley Rotary Club, Women's Institute, Churches Together, Armed Forces and many other organisations and charities. A LOT of planning goes into making these events a good experience for residents.
3. Beverley Town Council is a bloated bureaucracy
The council has only four staff of whom some are part-time. There is the Town Clerk who heads administration of the council, the Deputy Town Clerk, the Responsible Financial Officer and an administrator. There is also a casual Mace Bearer who is employed ad-hoc to carry the town's ceremonial mace at civic events.
The council's offices are in a small very modest building in Well Lane, Beverley.
4. Beverley Town Council is a pointless layer of government
The East Riding of Yorkshire, our county authority, is one of the most heavily parished in the UK, with 168 parishes. I once asked the Tory councillor responsible for parishes, if he would rationalise the parishes to a lower number and he retorted 'Do you want to start a civil war?'.
Actually, parish councils are a good thing. The councillors are unpaid and cost residents nothing; they are community-spirited people who want to get involved and are drawn form across the social and political spectrum. Effectively parish councils are delegate bodies for the county council - they carry out many low-level tasks which otherwise would have to be done from county hall in Beverley by paid staff, which would cost a lot more and be much less responsive. Many of the community facilities in the parishes such as Molescroft Pavilion and its adjacent park are actually provided and operated by the parish councils.
Beverley Town Council covers one of the many parishes - Beverley itself. It is important to understand that what many people think of as 'Beverley' is actually not, strictly speaking, Beverley. Much of what is north and north west of St Mary's church is actually the old parish of Molescroft, which has been in existence since the Doomsday Book. Much that is south and south west of Beverley Minster is actually the parish of Woodmansey. Beverley parish covers most of what is between St Mary's Church and the Minster including the Westwood, Norwood and Swinemoor districts.