Isle of Wight News on Ventnor Blog

Isle of Wight Council Leader, David Pugh, has been referred for investigation in connection to incidents at and after the council Chairman’s Valentine’s Ball, where the widely-distributed video of Cllr Pugh shouting profanities at another guest was recorded.

Following the complaint made by Cllrs Jonathan Bacon, Geoff Lumley and Chris Welsford, six potential breaches of the Code of Conduct for Elected Members have been identified by the Assessment Sub-Committee of the Ethical Standards Committee.

“Seeking to bury the story”
The summary of the complaint compiled by the sub-committee has included the “involvement of the Council’s communications department in seeking to bury the story, compromising the impartiality of Council officers and failing to react and respond appropriately to this matter.”

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Andrew Turner is the latest to join a campaign to save thousands of vitamin and mineral food supplements being banned in the UK by an EU directive.

Across the UK, the campaign called ‘Time Is Running Out’ has been unveiled by Consumers for Health Choice (CHC).

The campaigners say that the EU directive will mean thousands of vitamins and minerals will be banned from chemists, supermarkets and healthfood shops in other than meaningless doses.

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As you may have seen on the VB Twitter stream last night, Chris Bonney won the election at St Lawrence ward of the Ventnor Town Council. Guess we should call him Cllr Bonney now.

It was a close-run thing with him getting 107 votes and Maureen Cawley getting 99. Three ballot papers were rejected.

St Lawrence is a small ward, so the 209 votes cast represented a healthy turn out of 33.44%.

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At 10pm tonight the votes will be counted in St Lawrence for the local ward.

VentnorBlog went to the polling station today to ask voters what they had looked for in selecting their next town councillor and which issues mattered most to them.

Have a listen …

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Image: Matt From London under CC BY 2.0

Up at the polling station today, we ran into the two candidates Maureen Cawley and Chris Bonney. They spoke to us about the vote and how they went about canvassing for the elections.

If this has inspired you, you’ve still got a little time to get out and vote.

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Image: Alex Folkes/fishnik.com under CC BY-ND 2.0

There’s a video circulating around the Isle of Wight. Apparently, its source tells us, it was shot on Friday night outside the Cowes Yacht Haven.

We’ve heard many stories about alleged events at the Friday night charity Valentine Ball, hosted by Isle of Wight Council chairman Cllr Arthur Taylor.

As we weren’t there, we’re not going to dwell on them, as those reports are second-hand, no matter how reliable the witnesses.

What we have seen is the video.

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The candidates have been busy canvassing over the last few weeks and the results of their hard work will become evident by Thursday night this week.

Polling takes place between 7am-10pm at the usual location of the St. Rhadagunds CE Holiday Home, Undercliff Drive, St. Lawrence.

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A combination of opposition Isle of Wight councillors have released a budget as an alternative to the one proposed by the current ruling Conservative council.

Their suggestions are wide ranging, including what they call “a novel suggestion that high-earning Council managers set a ‘we are all in this together’ austerity example by giving up 15% of all earnings above £90,000 pa – potentially raising more than £150k.”

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IW Radio reported this morning that former council leader Andy Sutton was last Friday suspended from the Conservative Party.

They go on tell us that papers from a meeting held last Friday state, “the executive council decided to suspend Andy’s membership of the Conservative Party, pending full consideration of this matter at a special meeting on Monday 8th March”.

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This statement just in from the council. Ed

IW Council Chief Executive, Steve Beynon has today (Monday 8 February) issued a written assurance to Mark Chiverton, Unison Branch Secretary, that he is not required to make choice between resignation and standing down as a candidate in the forthcoming general election.

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Mark Chiverton told VB this afternoon that in his 37 years working for Isle of Wight Council, he has never seen such a gulf between the centre of the organisation and its staff.

Over 150 Isle of Wight council workers (who are Unison members) gathered today and delivered their vote of no confidence in Chief Executive Steve Beynon and Leader of the council, David Pugh.

The lack of confidence was widespread and strongly expressed at the meeting.

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Mark Young from the Paddle Steamer Ryde Trust is urging readers to sign a petition to help save the Paddle Steamer Ryde. Ed

After many years of unsuccessful negotiations to acquire the Paddle Steamer Ryde (Ryde Queen/The Boat), the Paddle Steamer Ryde Trust finally seemed to get a promising opportunity to do so.

Unfortunately for reasons unknown negotiations have faltered at the last moment, and the administrators of the site have commenced breaking the vessel up.

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Following Steve Beynon’s insistence that Mark Chiverton was not told to stand down from his candidature as Labour MP or resign from his post at the council, we spoke with Mark this afternoon.

On a crackly telephone line, he told us that after the meeting he’d had with a senior council officer, which left him “bemused and devastated”, he subsequently emailed the senior officer, putting back the proposition, first reported this morning, which has never been denied.

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Further to the news that Mark Chiverton has been asked to stand down as Labour Parliamentary Candidate or resign from his full time position at the Isle of Wight Council, we approached the Island MP, Andrew Turner, for his views.

Mr Turner told VB that “If Council officers are concerned about his position they should have said something long ago. Raising it a few months before a General Election is wrong, and could easily be construed as improper interference with the political process.”

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Further to our report earlier this morning in which Labour Parliamentary candidate Mark Chiverton told us that he had been told to stand down or resign from his post, we’ve just received the response below from the Chief Executive, Steve Beynon.

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We hear that the Island’s prospective parliamentary Labour candidate, Mark Chiverton, has been told by the senior management at the Isle of Wight council that he should either resign his job, or stand down as a candidate.

He’s outraged.

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Having re-read the Ventnor audit report again yesterday, one thing that shone through was that no-one in Ventnor or on the rest of the Island would have been aware of this murky period in Ventnor history if ‘new’ councillors hadn’t come on to Ventnor Town Council (VTC) over the last couple of years and pushed for this to be investigated.

Surely thanks not abuse?
Shouldn’t these ‘new’ councillors be thanked instead of being vilified?

The thanks that they’ve received from some up to now? Having to endure a whipped-up mob shouting at them in VTC meetings and some threats of physical violence against them.

That, of course, all occurred between it becoming known that an independent auditor was to investigate some of the past business of the VTC and the report being delivered.

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As anyone who follows current affairs will know, former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, will face questioning at the Iraq Inquiry tomorrow.

Many people were unhappy about how easily and quickly our troops were sent to Iraq.

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Anyone who follows the goings-on at County Hall will know that they can always rely on Labour councillor, Geoff Lumley to keep the current administration in check.

With the proposed budget options for 2010 being discussed at the Overview & Scrutiny Committee next Monday evening, Cllr Lumley asks “How on earth has the current IW Council budget blackhole nearly doubled in just 2 months? From £3.5 million, to £6.5 million. And why are the leadership no longer taking successful ‘management action …..to reduce spend in identified pressure areas’ ?”⁺

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The tribunal hearing the case for Cllr Andy Sutton, ex-leader of the council’s involvement with the Craven Court planning application, has today announced it’s notice of decision, a full report is yet to be released.

The tribunal has declared that Cllr Sutton should be suspended from the Isle of Wight Council for six months for failing to declare an interest in the planning application, for improperly seeking to influence the decision with a senior planning officer and for bringing his position as Leader and the council into disrepute.

Cllr Sutton’s suspension will start on 1 February 2010.

Code of Conduct Training
The tribunal also made the recommendation that further training should be provided for Members of the Council on the Code of Conduct.

Following our recent report about the fate of Shanklin Theatre, we received an email from Isle of Wight Council Leader, David Pugh.

The Leader was keen for us to see a letter that he’d written in response to residents opposing the closure of the theatre. In his letter he states very clearly that “due to limited financial resources … it is unlikely that funding for theatres can ever again be a financial priority for the Council.”

However, he goes on to say that he has been working very closely with the local community to develop a proposal for the future management of the theatre.

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We’re all too well aware of the impact the heavy snow and ice had on the Island last week, with many concerns voiced over the preventative measures taken by the Isle of Wight Council.

Liberal Democrat Prospective MP for the Isle of Wight, Jill Wareham, tells us today that she will be calling for an inquiry at County Hall.

“I eventually ventured out to Newport in my car on Friday, three days after the first snow fell, and was amazed to see that the pavements in the main town on the Island had not been cleared and people were walking along very gingerly.

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Regular readers will remember that in October last year, Chale School were given a last chance to try to save their school from closure (as a result of the massive school reorganisation).

The Isle of Wight Council permitted them a two month period to put together a proposal for federation.

As many readers will be aware, the village have been battling hard to save their primary school, which they say will rip the heart out of the community if it is lost.

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The Bournemouth Daily Echo are reporting this morning that permission to build a wand wind farm off the coast of the Isle of Wight has today been approved.

There are nine zones that have received approval around the UK.

These include sites in the Irish Sea, the Bristol Channel, the Moray Firth, the Firth of Forth, off the coast of Norfolk and of course off the Isle of Wight.

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An pro-turbine member of the public is urging Islanders to support a new petition urging government support for on-shore and off-shore turbines for the Isle of Wight.

Created via the Prime Minister’s No.10 Website, the petition calls for “Prime Minister to push forward plans for wind turbines on, or offshore from, the Isle of Wight.”

At time of publishing this article there were 568 signatures on the petition which runs until 16th March 2010.

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