Insufficient members puts town council in ‘serious position’

A Herefordshire town could be in the “serious and untenable position” of being unable to pass its budget for the coming year, or conduct any other business, after the status of three of its councillors was called into question.

Ledbury Town Council was unable to hold its scheduled meeting on February 19 “due to there being insufficient numbers of ‘undisputed’ councillors at the meeting”, its clerk said in a message to councillors seen by LDRS.

Having lacked a full complement of councillors for some years, it recently emerged the town council had been conducting business at meetings  which turned out to be “inquorate” – that is, lacking the minimum number of councillors present.

It had understood that only a third of actual councillors, who have ranged in number from ten to 12 in recent years, need be present. But it was recently told that the quorum figure was actually one-third of 18, the notional number of councillors – that is, six.

This put the transactions of at least a dozen meetings in question, including those at which three new councillors, Jonathan Browning, David Kettle and Gary Troy had been “co-opted” – that is, voted on by fellow councillors without a public election.

Couns Browning and Kettle were co-opted at the October 2024 full council meeting, at which only four councillors were present. And while six were present last October when Coun Troy was voted on, two of those were Couns Browning and Kettle.

With their status now, as the clerk’s letter describes it, “disputed”, to be on the safe side the council now needs at least six of its seven remaining “undisputed” councillors to make its meetings quorate.

The abandoned meeting will now reconvene this evening (Wednesday February 25), “which will enable the council to meet the statutory deadline date for setting its budget and requesting the precept for 26/27”, the clerk’s letter goes on to say.

“It is therefore essential for all councillors to be present at this meeting, as without the approval of the budget and precept, the council would be placed in a serious and untenable position.”

She asked all members to confirm their availability.

The town council was asked whether it had made progress on resolving the issue of the earlier inquorate meetings.