Harwell Village News and Gossip

The biggest news of the year for some was the removal of Mrs Emma Hollister as the Parish Council Clerk. If the unelected parish councillor Stuart Lilly's emails are to be believed (we are always stunned by the lack of thought in his emails), Mrs Hollister won just under a years salary in a settlement designed to shut her up. In Stuart's own words... “she has lost the battle and our insurance covers the lot”. Paying someone a years salary clearly shows how wrong the Parish Council are, and the slanderous gossip and persecution inflicted upon Mrs Hollister by them is unforgivable.

Mrs Hollister doesn't talk about the events (part of the agreement we think), but we do know that she continued in her other job as Payroll Manager and is nearly working full time again. Her other employer was aware of the situation and were willing to testify as a character witness on her behalf in the employment tribunal.

Bob from the Butchers seems to have come a cropper too and fell foul to the Parish Council's ever wagging tongues. So too have any members of the village who question what they are doing. We have had loads of emails on both subjects, none of which back the Parish Council!

As one reader put it... “don't worry half of them will be dead soon”. Hmmm, perhaps too extreme a comment for us, but he was right in some respects. These people are stuck in their ways and have no ability to think creatively – they are just thinking about themselves and not our community.

Unelected parish councillor Stuart Lilly and unelected parish councillor June Blissett were also investigated by the Police for mail theft when they struck a dodgy (and in the words of the investigating officer from the Post Office) “masonic” deal with the head of the local post office to ensure that Mrs Hollisters home post was redirected to June Blissetts house. The Didcot Post Office branch manager was suspended, demoted then moved, and the Post Office admitted that Mrs Hollisters post had been redirected unofficially and illegally to June Blissetts house. June Blissett denied all knowledge of this to the Police, despite the local postman confirming that he dropped the mail off there. The Police obtained a copy of a dodgy letter from unelected parish councillor Stuart Lilly to the Didcot Sorting Office Manager demanding the redirection to the house of unelected parish councillor June Blissett. I think you can draw your own conclusions on this issue.

The Parish Council were also forced to face the modern world. From 'what's the Internet' to 'lets embrace the Internet', the old fuddy duddies were forced to wake up to part of the world around them. All this thanks to this web site (you can look over the meeting minutes which had no entries about the Internet or a web site before this blog started).

But soon the Parish Council went back to their old ways...

Unelected parish councillor June Blissett employed a friend of hers (someone who rents a house from unelected parish councillor Jim Mulford)...

Unelected parish councillor Jim Mulford used Parish Council staff and equipment to help friends....

There were lots of complaints to this site about Parish Councillors getting planning permission on their own homes whilst denying anyone that they didn't get on with. With especially strong comments on the unelected parish councillor who build a house in their back garden despite turning down planning permission for neighbours.

It's been clear from this year, that the current unelected Parish Council represent themselves, their minions, and no one else. Contracts have gone to friends of councillors, and they used and abuse their positions to their own advantage and not that of the community as a whole.

This is the very great risk when a body of people are self electing. They have no risk of being unelected. They have no risk of being accountable. If they keep their minions happy, then they are their own self fulfilling prophecy.

Well have a happy new year all, and don't forget, opinions and gossip on this site have been formed from emails and conversations with people from the village. We make this gossip and we are this gossip.

# posted by Harwell Village @ 15:47