Double Act for Tenbury

Tenbury resident, and recently ex-County Councillor, Reg Farmer has been re-elected as Chairman of Malvern Hills District Council, and Phil Grove has been elected as Leader.

Phil takes over from the interim Leader Ralph Madden, who stepped in after Reg Farmer's Daughter Serena Croad stepped down in May.

Now if Malvern Hills negelect Tenbury, the problem is very close to home!

Malvern Gazette

Paul Daniels recommends Tenbury.

Extract from his blog.

we went up to Tenbury to do the old Regal Theatre there. If ever you find yourself with time to spare, take a drive along the M5 and turn off for Tenbury. That has got to be the prettiest countryside you will ever see in the UK. Amazing. Pop into the theatre too, and slip back in time.

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New Chair calls for review

Tenbury Town Council have appointed the Reverend Cllr, Ian Williams, to chair the Finance and Staffing Group committee.

Following his appointment he has called for a complete root and branch revue of all the Town Council's income and expenditure. and for proper Business Plans to be drawn up for the Councils major assets such as the Pump Rooms and the Regal.

Under the current accounting system, it is virtually impossible to identify which of the Council's services make money and which loose money. It is also unclear what services are supplied at commercial rates and which are heavily subsidised. Whilst it is the job of a Council to raise a precept and provide services, there needs to be a balance, and at the moment this cannot be proved one way or another.

The Council needs to make some decisions on a Commercial basis. At tonight's meeting they discussed placing an advert for the Pump Rooms in a Civil Ceremony directory, but at no time did anyone question just how many additional weddings would have to be booked just to pay for the advert.

My suspicion is far too many!

(Update 6/7/09 : The Council voted against spending £325 on a wedding advert. The cost of hiring the Pump Rooms for a Civil Ceremony is approx. £20)

HSE Condem Heating System

Although there has been no official confirmation from Tenbury Town Council, it appears that following a snap inspection by Health & Safety Inspectors, the Heating system in the Regal Theatre has been condemned as unsafe.

This is a rather unexpected decision as the heating system and oil storage tanks were completely reinstalled after the flood and have passed both Fire Brigade and Insurance inspections.

Emergency meetings have been taking place as the cost of replacing the system again, would run into tens of thousands of pounds. If no resolution can be found, the theatre will be unusable for six months of the year, and is likely to suffer further structural damage if left unheated all winter.

Shropshire Star article

New Leader of MHDC

It looks likely that Cllr Phillip Grove, Tenbury's Malvern Hills District Councillor will be confirmed as the new leader of Malvern Hills District Council tomorrow.

County Elections - Results

Tenbury Division: Election Results

Candidate Name	Political Party	Number of Votes	Percentage of Votes
Ken POLLOCK	Conservative	1771	43.92%
Clifford Michael SLADE	Liberal Democrat	1413	35.04%
Brian MILLS	UK Independence Party	461	11.43%
Matthew Adam WILLIAMS	Green Party	211	5.23%
Jonathan Pryce MORGAN	Independent	176	4.37%

Heated exchanges in high temperature chamber.

As expected there were some good quality debates at tonight's meeting of Tenbury Town Council.

Four Councillors had asked for a resolution on the restructuring of committees to be bought back before the Council for further debate and clarification.

A larger than usual number of members of the public watched, in an already hot Council chamber as all of the Councillors participated in discussing, whether to proceed with reducing the size of the committees to 5 or to maintain the status quo at around 7.

The argument for; was that smaller committees would lead to better quality debating and more clarity of decision.  It was also pointed out that smaller committees would be more likely to call upon expert assistance.  The full Council would then be in a position to challenge the resolution as the majority wouldn't have already voted.

The counter argument was that if the system isn't broke, why fix it and concerns that on occasion the committees would be too small to form a quorum.

The Town Clerk explained that smaller committees could slow down the process as at the moment she can process certain resolutions without having to wait for full Council as the majority of Councillors would have already voted.

There was also the  question of whether committees should be made up of Councillors with no "interests" or whether the reverse should be true.  The majority felt that it was best for the committees to contain the Councillors with the most appropriate knowledge and that was most likely to be those with an "interest", but this should be clearly stated at the beginning of the meeting as now.

The Councillors were split 50/50 on a resolution to maintain the status quo, but the Mayor's vote against meant that the original resolution to reform was confirmed.

The suggestion that the number of Councillors required to call a resolution back for further discussion should be increased from 3 to 7 was withdrawn as it was obvious it would not get full support.

Annual Achievement Award 2009

Tenbury Town Council have awarded their annual achievement award to Martin Crisp for services to swimming.  Mr Crisp who moved to Tenbury in the 1940's has taught hundreds of children and adults to swim over the last 32 years.