Councillor refuses to resign after no-confidence vote

Outrage from supporters as Cold Ash Parish councillor faced an 'administrative lynching'

A COLD Ash parish councillor has not bowed to demands for him to stand down following a vote of no confidence last week.

Richard Crumly, a parish councillor since 2003, was the subject of the vote last Tuesday, after other members of the council claimed that he rarely attended meetings and refused to take his turn on the planning rota.

Mr Crumly, who is also a Conservative Thatcham town and West Berkshire district councillor for the Thatcham Central ward, accused his fellow parish councillors of a “breach of human rights” after councillor Richard Hudspith called for the council to ask for Mr Crumly's resignation.

Mr Crumly, who was given the chance to speak, and said: “You are acting as a prosecuting authority and you are going to act as a judge and jury as well. It's not a fair hearing or a fair way of doing things. You cannot just vote me out; I will still be a councillor.”

Mr Crumly said that his commitments to the town and district councils, as well as holidays and an illness were the reasons he was unable to attend many of the parish council meetings, and added that it was unfair that he had not be informally approached regarding their concerns.

He said: “One can be a good councillor without attending every meeting.”

He asked the other councillors: “How is this going to restore any relationship? Am I going to feel welcome? I feel not. Will you want to see me? I don't think so.”

During the meeting, at which there were nine members of the 10-strong parish council, several people had turned up to speak in support of Mr Crumly, including West Berkshire councillor Garth Simpson (Con, Cold Ash), Conservative agent David Holtby, Bowling Green Road resident Dorothy Le-Cornu, and Bucklebury Alley resident Julian Waghorn.

However, all the councillors backed the no-confidence vote and Mr Crumly was asked if he would resign.

He replied: “Of course not.”

Following the meeting, Mr Waghorn described the proceedings as a “travesty of justice” and an “administrative lynching”.

He said: “The motion was amended from one possibly allowing for reconciliation to one demanding his immediate resignation, that was akin to a bully kicking someone already down. “It was clearly pre-orchestrated.

“All three councillors who spoke – the chairman and the proposer and seconder of the motion – attacked Mr Crumly from prepared notes and paid no attention at all to either anything Mr Crumly said in his defence, including a comment that he had had no informal approach to resolve the issue, or my comment from the floor that this approach was unlikely to encourage future participation in parish council matters.”

Mr Crumly said afterwards that the call for his resignation had been unwelcome and added: “I felt disappointed that it should be unanimous against me because I thought I had a good case. It was a waste of time and money.

“[The next meeting] is going to be another uncomfortable experience.”

However, the chairwoman of the parish council, Corinne Rust, said that Mr Crumly would be welcomed to meetings in the future and members “would love to see him there”.