HHullbridge Councillor Michael Hoy writes on his blog about the poor attendance at last Tuesday’s Development Meeting (which only dealt with one application – for a Kebab restaurant in Rochford)
…I have mentioned the attendance of the Tory Councillors before and the numbers that are very often absent. On this occasion out of 32 Tory Councillors only 14 attended (total council membership is 39) meaning that 18 were absent or over 55% of them….
For what it’s worth , 3 out of 5 Lib Dems were present.
The Echo reports that officers turned down a proposal to tax take-away stores as a way of controlling their numbers. This sounds an interesting proposal which I think would have a lot of support across the district. Perhaps Admin can advise more details on this and whether the low turn-out influenced the result?
Fair question Brian – will explain tonight…
Brian the paragraph in the officers report that the Echo picked up on was:
“Members may be aware that Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council has pursued a policy to introduce a so called “fat tax” of £1000 per unit to fund healthy eating campaigns and to address the overwhelming concentration of takeaways in the town dubbed “takeaway town”. Informal discussions with officers at Oldham Council reveal that in Oldham there are extensive concentrations of such outlets with long runs of roller shutters dominating the daytime shopping frontage and with a strong night time culture with closed units during daytime reducing the attractiveness of the daytime shopping areas. The resultant concentration of eating establishments within the Rochford town centre does not compare with the extreme case of Oldham.”
At Rochford there may have been discussions between individual officers and councillors regarding a Fat Tax but no proposals have come before the council as a whole. And a tax doesn’t really control numbers – but it might put a small takeaway out of business in a rural area where it is wanted….
Regarding the vote – this was only on the proposal for the takeaway in Rochford. Very difficult to assess whether the outcome would be different if more people were there. It’s not just a question of how many hands go up to vote, there’s always the possibility that someone who wasn’t present might have come along and made a really eloquent speech that persuadeed many members in one direction.