You would certainly be forgiven for questioning whether Godshill actually had a parish council or does it come under Wroxall as they certainly play an active part in the community.
Here is a current example of how they think only of themselves giving scant regard for the community they serve. It relates to the parish council noticeboard which we all know is most inconveniently placed.
The next parish council meeting is on Monday 5th July at 7:30pm in the Methodist Hall. If you check the Parish Council noticeboard on the small patch of grass close to the Post Office you will see their most recent meeting announcement. It is dated 12th May for the Annual General Meeting on 18th May. It was posted there at the very latest date that it legally needed to be posted – no consideration for the residents, just satisfying their legal requirement – absolute minimum level of communication.
Since that date there has been another parish council meeting in June and there is another one next week. No announcement on their noticeboard for either of these meetings. They are LEGALLY required to post notice of these meetings three clear business days before each meeting. That means if there is to be a meeting on a Monday evening, as has been their normal practice, a notice must be on the noticeboard on the preceding Tuesday. However, good practice advice to parish councils states that the notice ought to be posted 5 to 7 clear days before a meeting.
Godshill Parish Council has ignored its legal obligation to give the required notice on its noticeboard for the last two meetings
Even if the Parish Council’s defence is that the agenda is posted on their website, they can’t suddenly change from posting on the website and the noticeboard to just posting on the website, without announcing the fact on both the noticeboard and the website. I would also suggest that it would only be right and proper for them to discuss it as an item in a parish council meeting and decide officially that they are no longer going to post an agenda on their noticeboard.
Maybe they are going to do away with the noticeboard. It is in probably the most useless position anyway. They’ve removed one of the two benches, so why not get rid of the noticeboard and, come to think of it, the other bench as well so that we appear even less welcoming to visitors!
Hopefully things are going to change. I believe that the new parish councillors, who have only been in place a couple of months, are far from happy with what they are finding, and will be encouraging the parish council to make significantly more effort to actually communicate with those they are supposed to be serving.