Two parish councillors walked out of an extraordinary parish council meeting when confronted by rudeness and a complete lack of willingness of the chair to actually listen to the complaints put forward by 50% of the parish councillors. The two councillors, Amanda Taylor and Carl Donoclift, who have both had a significant positive impact on the activities of the council since joining just over a year ago, have both now resigned.
The chair, Alison Child and the parish clerk, Gareth Hughes allowed the meeting to be conducted way beyond their own ‘Code of Conduct’ as published on their website. Child and/or Hughes had invited to the meeting a person well known in island council circles. A parish clerk to two councils, Val Taylor has been around island local government for a long time and is well known for the disruptions she has caused in the past, for example, https://onthewight.com/ex-ventnor-councillor-val-taylor-attempts-to-halt-meeting/
Val Taylor’s status in this meeting was that of a member of the public and is not a Godshill resident. Although not a member of the parish council she sat at the councillors’ table with the clerk and the chair and not in the public seating with the only other member of the public present (also not a resident).
According to councillors, Child, as chair of the meeting, did nothing to control the continuous outbursts and interruptions from Val Taylor and effectively ceded control to her. Hughes, in turn, totally ignored his position as clerk and did nothing to point out that the meeting was being conducted way outside the council’s code of conduct.
Val Taylor, who had no apparent right to be speaking in this meeting, verbally attacked both Councillors Carl Donoclift and Amanda Taylor and left them with no alternative but to walk out of the meeting. Both have now formally tendered their resignations to the chair and so the council is down to just 4 members for this evening’s monthly parish council meeting.