25th April 2012

LYME REGIS: Trust argues against 'misleading' letter

By Francesca Evans

THE chairman of Lyme Regis Development Trust and manager of LymeNET have spoken out after a “misleading” letter printed in the View From Lyme Regis.

Trust chairman Wendy Davies and LymeNET manager and town councillor Lucy Campbell both made statements at last week’s full council meeting. They argued against a letter by development trust founder Geoff Mann (published April 11th), who questioned whether LymeForward, set up by the trust, should “hold the purse” if a Community Land Trust was set up to provide more affordable housing in the town, which was discussed at a previous council meeting.

In reply, Mrs Davies made the following statement, which was read by the town clerk, as she was unable to attend the meeting: “I would be glad if you could assure councillors that, contrary to the misleading headline and letter in last week's View From (April 11th), Lyme Regis Development Trust is not intending to run any Community Land Trust which may be set up, nor to be responsible for any of its financial holdings.

“The discussion at the March Community Development Partnership meeting was about who might manage the organisation of a preliminary meeting and perhaps oversee the setting-up process.

Under the umbrella

“As stated in the minutes, it was suggested that LymeForward should arrange a meeting in early summer to give further information to anyone interested in taking the concept forward. As chairman of the development trust, a member of LymeForward, I agreed to lead on this task ‘under the umbrella of LymeForward’.

“And just to clarify what I meant by the term ‘under the umbrella of LymeForward’, LymeForward is a partnership of 90 organisations in Lyme and the surrounding area, including service providers such as Magna, the emergency services, health services, etc. The concept of Local Area Partnership is defined by WDDC's Policy on Support for Local Area Partnerships, and the district council's expectations and requirements are further set out in a Service Level Agreement between WDDC, Lyme Regis Town Council and Lyme Regis Development Trust.

“As the partnership has no standing in law, LRDT acts as the accountable body, receiving a grant to employ personnel to deliver on set targets.

“Today, incidentally, LRDT has accounted to WDDC and LRTC for our actions over the last year, as we are required to do every year. The monitoring criteria used and a verbal report will be made ot next week’s Community Development Partnership.

“So when anyone talks about operating ‘under the umbrella of LymeForward’, they are indicating that they - either as an individual or an organisation - are working towards a goal which has been agreed by a LymeForward meeting (papers circulated in advance to all 90 members).

“An example is the valuable work done by Philip Sankey in attending WATAG meetings on our behalf. Similarly, the town council in the person of Lucy Campbell is leading the skatepark project. It could be said that all the LymeForward projects not directly being carried out by our part-time co-ordinator Ellen Austin would have happened anyway; in many cases this is true, but the LymeForward umbrella ensures that others know what is happening, enabling them to support and assist, and for actions to be more co-ordinated and cost-effective than they would otherwise have been.

“Hopefully these benefits of partnership working outweigh the disadvantage of any confusion caused by the blurring of absolute boundaries.”

No wrong-doing

Speaking later in the meeting, Councillor Campbell made reference to a comment about her in Mr Mann’s letter, quoting her as saying “not to use LymeForward would be a watse of a resource”, and implying she had a prejudicial interest in the subject as an employee of development trust subsidary LymeNET.

She said: “There was no talk or intention for LymeForward or the development trust to run the Community Land Trust. I take objection to the implication in the letter in the paper that there was any wrong-doing on my part. As clearly stated on the register of interests and at the meeting I have a personal and prejudicial interest in any item relating to planning, licensing or money and as those weren’t the case at the meeting I rightly stayed and discussed and voted on it.

“It’s not the first time I have been accused or implied to have done some wrong-doing through the papers and through letters. I’m really fed up with this sort of passive agreessive way of attacking me and my integrity when I have done nothing wrong and only worked to improve the lives of the local community.”

Councillor Rikey Austin, who was also mentioned in the letter because her sister works for LymeForward, said she would prefer that people came to meetings and discussed any issues they had with councillors rather than going through the local press.

She added: “It doesn’t help to instigate this culture of blame where we are afraid to deal with the things we believe in.”

The Mayor, Councillor Sally Holman, said that steps had been taken to come up with a policy to deal with similar situations in the future and this would be put to the council soon.

Councillor Daryl Turner told Councillor Campbell not to take everything she read in the local press as “gospel”, adding: “When you put your name up for election you have to get used to this type of thing. Remember this is just one person’s view. We all have our ups and downs.”

LYME REGIS: Trust argues against 'misleading' letter

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