Mrs E Morawiecka of Breinton, Hereford, says it's wrong time to discuss big agenda (From Hereford Times)

Mrs E Morawiecka of Breinton, Hereford, says it's wrong time to discuss big agenda

3:00pm Friday 11th May 2012 in Letters

I WHOLE heartedly agree with coun Nenaditch about the agenda and timing of the cabinet meeting on April 5, and I think he has serious grounds for a complaint.

The cabinet had cancelled all its scheduled meetings in March and nearly seven weeks after the last, an agenda of more than 250 pages was produced for a meeting to start at 2pm on Maundy Thursday when so many key officers and directors were on annual leave.

The first item on the agenda was the variations to the ESG deal which are being proposed by the developer Stanhope. This item could well have waited until after the Queen’s visit as by then the full council should have agreed an upto- date transport plan, to take account of the impact of a retail development which is no longer supported by the council’s current transport plan.

Instead the cabinet, led by a leader who is also on the board of Hereford Futures, jumps at the behest of some London property developer who seems to want to transfer the risk of the project onto the local taxpayer with less than 19 days’ notice.

Coun Nenaditch is quite right, the welfare of our most vulnerable citizens is equally if not more important than the local taxpayer funding property developers and should be given proper time for consideration and debate.

Unfortunately, neither the chairman of the meeting nor the cabinet would seem to share his views.

It is in the power of the chairman to decide whether meetings should go beyond three hours, or whether important items should be deferred to subsequent cabinet meetings for proper consideration. Will Coun Nenaditch be making a formal complaint about the agenda and excessive amount of business to be debated at the start of the bank holiday weekend when many key officers are on annual leave? Will he be making a complaint about the inaccuracy and arithmetical errors in some of the comments made by cabinet members? I certainly hope so, for the sake of democracy and proper debate in Herefordshire Council.

MRS E MORAWIECKA, Breinton, Hereford