No Resignations as Whitby Town Council Meets Following Town Poll

Thursday, 9 November 2023 06:00

By Matthew Pells

Whitby Town Council has met for the first time since a Town Poll suggested all council members should resign.

321 people took part in the poll last month out of a population of 10,103, a 3% turnout.

225 of those who voted in the non-binding poll called on the town's councillors to resign en-masse.

At this weeks council meeting the Mayor, Councillor Robert Dalrymple, read the motion.

At this weeks meeting councillors voted to 'note' the poll result.

Speaking to the the two town councillors who had proposed and seconded the resignation question, Councillor Asa Jones said a town poll was not the way to try and force an election.

Councillor John Nock suggested the councillors who had tabled the poll question might want to resign themselves.

There were no resignations by Councillors at Wednesday's meeting.

Councillor also discussed the two other questions included on the town poll.

Should Whitby Town Council petition the Department for Levelling Up, Homes & Communities (DLUHC) to halt and re-examine, the Whitby Town Deal Board project to regenerate the Market Place and to restrict the project to the renovation of the Old Town Hall?
Should Whitby Town Council petition the Department for Levelling Up, Homes & Communities (DLUHC) to halt and re-examine, in consultation with Whitby residents, the Whitby Town Deal Board project to build a Maritime Training Hub on Endeavour Wharf?

Both questions were supported by those taking part in the town poll with the Old Town Hall vote being 262 votes in support and 42 against, the Maritime Hub vote was supported by 247 votes and opposed by 56 votes.

Wednesday's council meeting passed a motion agreeing that the Town Council would write to the Minister but with a slightly revised wording proposed by Councillor Nock

The motion, which was passed by councillors, calls on the DLUHC to draw the Secretary of states attention to "the significance" of the views expressed in the town poll and to take "appropriate and proportionate action".

It's not clear what significance the poll will get from the Minister following the low turnout.

Speaking after the meeting Councillor Asa Jones added:

"What is clear from Tuesday’s Full Council meeting is that those Cllrs who moved for the Town Poll - calling on all Cllrs to resign have absolutely no plan for practically achieving the goal of competitive, democratic elections.

Instead, they have done nothing since polling day and came to the meeting completely unprepared. With no plan, Cllr Riddolls and Cllr Barnett attempted to move a motion at the meeting to force all Cllrs to resign. This was correctly ruled unlawful, and I would’ve thought that any competent Cllr would’ve realised such a motion was unlawful and save themselves the embarrassment of arguing over it with the Mayor for several minutes.

It is clear to me that the town poll was not called for as a genuine attempt to induce democracy, but as a partisan and factional move by a group of Cllrs who do not enjoy the support of a majority of Cllrs and who have spent the last 6 months disrupting Council business and wasting Council resources in an attempt to gain partisan political power."