The Movement Working Group

Mon 23 Mar 2015, 01:38 (last edited on Mon 23 Mar 2015, 07:41)

I'm sorry, Liz, but despite your very evident enthusiasm I am with Christine. There is a clear and obvious democratic deficit underlying the activities of the Charlbury Neighbourhood Forum. This was discussed on this online forum a month ago when it became evident that a number of posters had little idea what the Forum was, what it was up to, and how it derives its mandate. That should have served as a warning. Your task of drafting a strategic plan is massively ambitious, yet there continues to be little or nothing online about the choices we face. There are no decent links on the Forum, yet, as Christine rightly says, other ideas are starting to drift around in an unstructured and unstrategic way, some of them (it seems to me - and evidently Christine too) distinctly eccentric, and certainly confusing. I know you want to recruit an administrator (announced in February), but we're nearly in April and no appointment has yet been announced, even though the original plan was for a referendum in late 2015.

I will be utterly candid, and say right now (in the kindest and friendliest way that I can muster) that I want to see government by democratic elections, but what we seem to be getting here is attempted government by activist, a well-known problem in all walks of life, and especially in Charlbury. There is very little online about the Forum, but in December 2014 your own minutes recorded a meeting with members of the Town Council:

"The meeting was to address a number of Town Councillors concerns regarding whether a Neighbourhood Plan and/or Community Led Plan is the best way forward.
• It was reaffirmed that the Neighbourhood Forum would continue to collect the community's concerns, views and aspirations without limiting scope specifically to a CLP or NP. The actual decision as to whether the outcome of this process is best addressed by either a Community Led Plan or Neighbourhood Plan will be made by the Town Council at a later date once it is clear which approach would be most effective".

Subsequent to this the Town Council requested a 'position statement' from the Forum, which was placed before them on 28 January. There was, according to the minutes, 'considerable discussion', leading to a request that further information about the Forum's thoughts should be placed in the public domain, which, so far as I know, has not occurred. In addition Tony Merry agreed to write a paper 'setting out the the advantages of and need for a Neighbourhood Plan', and that the Council would discuss this at its February meeting (with what conclusion I do not know, as the minutes aren't yet online).

If I am reading this right, then the situation seems to be: