Sponsored by
Row over trust board members
TWO district council leaders broke ranks last week over controversial plans to reduce the number of councillors on a housing trust board.
Councillors David Thompson and Phil Yerby, both Conservative, called for Aylesbury Vale District Council to retain at least a third representation on the Vale of Aylesbury Housing Trust (VAHT) board.
It followed calls from the trust to reduce the size of the board from 15 to 12.
But Mr Thompson and Yerby’s call for a minimum representation was rejected by cabinet members, ahead of crunch talks between the council and VAHT.
The council transferred all its housing stock to VAHT in 2006.
After a last-minute amendment to recommendations, councillors heard that any final reduction would need to go back to AVDC’s cabinet before it is approved.
Mr Yerby told the meeting that members of the district council’s Conservative group were overwhelmingly against disproportionate cuts to the number of VAHT board members.
He said: “You say trust your cabinet member, but I say trust your members, you know where they stand on this, I hope you will support this amendment as well.”
And he continued: “I can show you documents which show recommendations by the chief executive to reduce our membership to one by 2013-2014.”
Mr Thompson added: “I believe we need to keep the proportional ratio.
“I feel very strongly that this organisation does have a financial interest in VAHT, we derive an income from every council house that’s sold.”
But Councillor Pam Pearce, who is responsible for housing, told the meeting: “There’s no point in having a discussion if I’m going with only one thing to say.
“It’s going to be a discussion, and your comfort should be that it will come back to the cabinet. I can’t say that you want to tie my hands, and that I go into a meeting with nothing to offer. I’m not happy to take that on board, it’s not what we agreed yesterday.”
Mr Yerby responded: “We don’t agree things like that, we agree things in the proper formal way, and I wasn’t at that meeting.”
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Aylesbury
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: East
Comments
There are 2 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
littleduck
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 05:20 PMStrange that my previous comments were removed by the moderator. The facts are the facts and the truth is Councillor Phil Yerby was removed (sacked) from the Housing Trust's Board in 2011 (due to conduct issues). These facts can easily be verified by the Bucks Herald with the District Council or Housing Trust. Or is it the case that because it's a senior local councillor that little ducks comments were removed so as to sweep this under the carpet and to stop the public from knowing? Surely local people have a right to know who is running their Council and it's for local people to form their own viewsopinions. So much for the freedom of speech and local people knowing the truth and if this is being swept under the carpet then this little duck is going to start going quackkers!
littleduck
Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 09:53 PMComment removed by moderator
Page 1 of 1
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.