The CPC Chair is challenged over why she is trying to keep Cllr Moon and thus continue running CPC at 90%, when several keen candidates have recently presented themselves (email reply to Cllr Holt, 8th September 2025)

From:	Gavin Wilson <⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛@⬛⬛⬛.com>
To:	Donna Holt <donna.holt@claygateparishcouncil.gov.uk>
Date:	8 Sept 2025	Time:	06:54
subject:	Re: Your latest question
As you know, my question for the Planning Committee was: What was the status of Cllr Moon at the Planning committee meeting of 17th July? plus a few sentences to support what I believed the answer to be. This was entirely a question for the chair of the Planning Committee; it was not a question for you. My understanding is that the chair of the Parish Council has no jurisdiction over the everyday matters of the committees. Whether I received a reply was not a matter for you. As the Good Councillor's Guide 2024 says, 'the chair has no extra powers. The chair is not in charge of the council.' You are the chair—not a chief executive. It was not for you to tell me that I 'would not receive a reply' from the chair of the Planning Committee. You imply that there is now a rule that the public can only raise a question if it relates to an agenda item. This would mean the Parish Council allowing the public only to bring up topics which the Parish Council wants to talk about. This is good for neither local democracy nor the 'meaningful community engagement' which you wrote about in your draft letter to Monica Harding MP. Furthermore this rule cannot be imposed on Claygate citizens until it has been incorporated into the Parish Council's Standing Orders, which are still dated 24th May 2022. But I digress. You claim that my question had no bearing on any agenda item of the 28th August meeting, and yet in your next paragraph you contradict this claim when you refer to item #4, the confirmation of the minutes, a matter on which my question had a direct bearing. As you heard, I did try to ask my question. Cllr Sheppard said it was a constitutional issue to be answered at the next CPC meeting, despite my asserting that Cllr Moon's presence on the committee at the 17th July planning meeting was entirely a matter for him as chair. My final question to Anthony was to ask why he had allowed Cllr Moon onto the committee for that meeting. He replied that he had done so because you had asked him to do so. Nothing was said at the meeting or written on the agenda to indicate that Cllr Moon was attending in a special capacity, such as a substitute replacement, and that he would therefore not be entitled to a vote. Since then I have spoken to one parish councillor who attended both planning committee meetings and who wrongly believed at the 17th July meeting that Cllr Moon was on the committee! I do not understand why you and Cllr Sheppard agreed to pass Cllr Moon off as if he were a valid member of the planning committee. Did you really believe no-one would notice? Good Councillor's Guide 2024 makes it clear that non-committee members have only the status of a member of the public: 'Did you know that if a standing committee goes into confidential session and you are not a member of that committee, even though you are a member of the council you only have the same rights as a member of the public and will be excluded from the meeting? You are also not entitled to the confidential information that was discussed.' The irregularity of Cllr Moon's appearance on the planning committee table on the 17th July has to contend with Local Government Act 1972 Schedule 12 Part III 19(2), which says: 'Until the contrary is proved, a parish meeting, or a meeting of a committee thereof, in respect of the proceedings of which a minute has been made and signed as mentioned in sub-paragraph (1) above shall be deemed to have been duly convened and held, and all the persons present at the meeting shall be deemed to have been duly qualified, and where the proceedings are those of a committee, the committee shall be deemed to have been duly constituted and to have had power to deal with the matters referred to in the minutes.' Cllr Moon had not been 'duly qualified' and so the committee had not been 'duly constituted', so the signing of the minutes in item #4 of the next meeting is problematic. My final question is this: why did you ask Cllr Sheppard to allow Cllr Moon to attend the 17th July meeting? It is not as if Cllr Moon made any contribution of substance to that meeting. But to put it very bluntly, it is not as if Cllr Moon has done very much for the Parish Council since February the 13th. I like Hadleigh a lot, but the Parish Council has been operating at 90% capacity for more than six months. The Parish Council has just been presented with five candidates whom you described on Facebook as 'a really strong set of people with very good skills'. Whatever their lack of experience, at least they were enthusiastic about contributing to the Claygate community via the Parish Council. I guess that's the fundamental thing I don't understand: why the Parish Council should agree to take on more responsibilities, by way of the working groups created last year under the 'Claygate: the Way Forward' aegis, yet cut back its council meetings from 12 in 2023 and 12 in 2024 to eight in 2025. The community doesn't want a repeat of the Bob Twells case in which he moved away from Claygate to Kent on 25th July 2023, never attended another Parish Council meeting after 6th July 2023, yet the Parish Council didn't announce his resignation until 11th January 2024. And we were supposed to accept the Parish Council's excuse that his move 'had happened earlier than he had previously anticipated'. (According to Mark Sugden, he had his house on the market even while he stood as a candidate.) We really want to avoid the Parish Council running on 90% for any longer than absolutely necessary.

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