Councillors of Pendle Borough Council convened at Nelson Town Hall for the first meeting following the local elections earlier this month.
Thursday 16th May, 7pm
Councillors
Nadeem Ahmed, Mohammad Aslam, Neil Butterworth, David Cockburn-Price, Sarah Cockburn-Price, David Gallear, Mohammad Kaleem, Kieran McGladdery, Richard O'Connor, Tom Ormerod, Kevin Salter, Martyn Stone, Ash Sutcliffe
Mohammed Adnan, Faraz Ahmad, Sajjad Ahmed, Zafar Ali, Mohammad Ammer, Ruby Anwar, Mohammad Hanif, Mohammed Iqbal MBE, Asjad Mahmood, Yvonne Tennant
Chris Church, David Hartley, Susan Land, Dorothy Elizabeth Lord, Brian Newman, Mick Strickland, David Michael Whipp, Tom Whipp
Naeem Hussain Ashraf, Yasser Iqbal
Pendle Borough Council: Annual Full Council Meeting 2024/25
New Council structure following recent local elections
Mayor Mohammad Aslam Mayor Bryan Newman (Lib Dem) stepped down at the end of his term
Mayor of Pendle: Cllr Mohammad Aslam (Con)
Deputy Mayor of Pendle: Cllr Mohammad Ammer (Ind)
The Mayor is given an allowance of £6,130 for expenses. Any unused funds are reclaimed by the Council.Leader of the Council: Cllr Asjad Mahmood (Ind)
Deputy Leader of the Council: Cllr David Whipp (Lib Dem)
Executive: Asjad Mahmood (Ind), Mohammed Iqbal (Ind), Mohammed Hanif (Ind), Zafar Ali (Ind), David Whipp (Lib Dem), Dorothy Lord (Lib Dem), Tom Whipp (Lib Dem)
Deputy Council Leader, David Whipp (Lib Dem) claims his biggest achievement in the last year was the Council setting "a balanced budget without using a single penny of reserves."
New Council Leader
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| Council Leader Asjad Mahmood |
SECONDED Cllr Mohammed Iqbal (Ind).
Vote PASSED
New Deputy Council Leader
Cllr Mohammed Iqbal PROPOSES Cllr David Whipp (Lib Dem) as Deputy Council Leader
SECONDED by Cllr Asjad Mahmood (Ind)
Vote PASSED - no Conservative votes
New Executive Committee (7)
Councillors selected by the ruling parties
Asjad Mahmood (Ind)
Mohammed Iqbal (Ind)
Mohammed Hanif (Ind)
Zafar Ali (Ind)
David Whipp (Lib Dem)
Dorothy Lord (Lib Dem)
Tom Whipp (Lib Dem)
Appointment to Committees
Arguments began when it came to appointing Councillors to the six Council committees.
Council administrators had calculated that the allocation of seats for committees overall should be: Conservatives 19, Liberal Democrats 11, Independents 14, Pendle’s True Independents 3.
However, the makeup of the committees using the formula led to Conservatives having one (1) seat too many on a committee, the Independent group having 16 instead of 14 (2 extra), and Pendle's True Independents having none (0) instead of three (3).
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| Committee makeup using formula denies PTI 3 seats and gives the Conservatives and Independent group too many. |
Development Management Committee
Cllr David Whipp (Lib Dem) suggests the Conservatives are over-represented in the Development Management Committee (12) and PROPOSES a change to the designation of seats suggested by the administrators from 5 (Con), 3 (Lib Dem), 4 (Ind), 0 (PTI) to 4 (Con), 3 (Lib), 4 (Ind), 1 (PTI) - taking one seat from the Conservatives and giving it to Pendle's True Independents (PTI).
Cllr Yasser Iqbal (PTI) SECONDS the motion suggesting changing the constitution of the Council has no sanction and Councillors could choose to vote saying:
"It's right to say that when Jane (Watson, Head of Democratic Services) has done the figures we should get three... ...I've had a chat with Howard (Culshaw, Head of Legal) about this, there's nothing preventing - that might be the way the constitution is, but there's nothing preventing - if this Council, the majority, wants to do that motion, there's nothing preventing this Council to pass that as a motion regardless of what the political - the makeup of the structure is... ...there's nothing stopping this Council - there's no sanction, in fact, I'll call it, on this Council if they were to move that motion, so I would whole-heartedly agree and second that motion."
Cllr Yasser Iqbal
Pendle Council's Head of Legal, Howard Culshaw, agrees that Cllr David Whipp's (Lib Dem) proposal to change the makeup of the committees is lawful.
Conservative Leader, Nadeem Ahmed, suggests the Liberal Democrats have been over-represented in previous years but parties have always accepted the figures put forward by the Council administration. He said:
"I think it's unfair now at this stage, to be saying that we, the Conservatives - which is still the largest group on Pendle - to be giving up a seat. I would suggest that if the other independent group or the Liberal Democrats are feeling so generous, perhaps they would want to give up one of their own seats and allocate that to PTI instead of penalising the Conservative group."
Chief Executive of Pendle Borough Council, Rose Rouse, spoke to clarify the situation on political balance and explained that an element of rounding takes place with figures and allocation of committee seats.
She further explained that proposal suggested by Cllr David Whipp (Lib Dem), "is also within the spirit of the legislation, so it doesn't sit outside the spirit of the legislation, so we are content..."
Cllr Martyn Stone (Con) spoke to point out that under the current allocation, the Independent group has 16 seats instead of the 14 suggested by the administration compared to the claim from Cllr David Whipp (Lib Dem) that the Conservatives have 20 seats instead of 19.
Cllr Stone (Con) PROPOSES a counter-motion that the Independent group give up one seat to Pendle's True Independents which would leave both the Conservatives and the Independent group with one seat above the recommendations.
Cllr Ahmed (Con) SECONDS the counter-motion from Cllr Stone (Con).
The Conservatives all vote for Cllr Stone's (Con) counter-motion with 12 votes, but are outvoted by the combined opposition parties who all vote the motion down and it is REJECTED.
In the vote for the original motion put forward by Cllr David Whipp (Lib Dem) to change the committee seating allocation the voting was:
4 Against
8 Abstentions
"Chairman, we might as well start changing all the committee numbers at this rate... the coalition had the numbers, they knew this meeting was going to come up, they knew the Councillors representing the Council, if the coalition was that concerned about representing the PTI they should have talked about this beforehand, come up with the numbers and distributed their agenda beforehand. What we can't have is gerrymandering and making things up as we go along..."
Cllr Nadeem Ahmed
"It's ridiculous. I've been on the Council, Mr Mayor, for 20 years and we've never had anything like this before."
Cllr Neil Butterworth (Con) argues a Taxi Licencing committee of four Cllrs will lead to voting of 4 yes and 4 no, and eventual stalemate with nothing getting done.
Argument over "Shared Administration" or "Coalition"
Cllr Nadeem Ahmed (Con) referred to a "Coalition" between the Lib Dems and Independent group - a term of contention between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.
Cllr David Whipp (Lib Dem) responded to the claim:
"I'm not sure where this Coalition is, but it isn't is in this Council chamber and it isn't on this Council. It is quite clearly a Shared Administration and for Cllr Ahmed and Conservatives to repeat their nonsense is clearly unacceptable."
Chairmen of Committees
- Accounts and Audit Committee - Ruby Anwar (Ind)
- Development Management Committee - Mohammed Adnan (Ind)
- Licensing Committee - Yvonne Tennant (Ind)
- Taxi Licensing Committee - Brian Newman (Lib Dem)
- Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Chris Church (Lib Dem)
- Senior Management Appointments Committee - David Whipp (Lib Dem)
Conservatives dispute Cllr D. Whipp's claims about abandoning the Accounts & Audit committee
"The Shared Admininistration - aka 'Coalition' - is one which had no intention of producing a balanced budget over the medium term and therefore, for my own professional integrity, and also my colleagues' professional integrity, we as the Conservative group had to stand down following taking technical advice from various ethical standards bodies and our institutes."
Cllr David Cockburn-Price
The budget for 24/25 is balanced and doesn't rely on reserves... ...but as the Leader said in his speech, he said that our significant challenges are for 25/26 and 26/27 to the tune of £2.5m - but (saying) 'it's a challenge', what are you going to do about it?
We were quite prepared to join you and see what was going to happen... ...but if there's no intention to do that type of thing, then we'll leave it to your design."
"I think a dereliction of duty is the correct phrase here, that Council Audit committee should have met with its full membership on several occasions and that did just not happen.
Cllr Tom Whipp
And I don't care what some ethics board or some institute says, we as Councillors have a duty to attend the committees we are on... ...We as Councillors have a duty and ethical responsibility to attend meetings and do some work to resolve the medium and long-term issues that this Council has."
"We took advice from our professional bodies and the advice was very clear to us that if we felt that the Council was not appropriately safeguarding public funds then we should consider our positions on that committee.
Cllr Martyn Stone Now Mr Mayor we are prepared to sit on the at committee this year provided that - we will take Cllr Whipp's word that we are striving for a balanced budgetand we are going to act responsibly and we will take that on Cllr Whipp's word.However last year it did appear at the time that it would have been inappropriate for us to remain on that committee and it would indeed have been, from our professional bodies, it would have been our dereliction of duty to continue sitting on that committee and watching the council being driven to the financial rocks of bankruptcy."
"In terms of safeguarding public money, for Cllr Stone (Con) to imply that the Council was not safeguarding public money is a slur on professional officers who have reported favourably to this Council on the finances of this authority and formally reported the robustness of estimates as part of the budget process.
Cllr David Whipp The Council's finances were being driven to the rocks of financial bankruptcy under the previous Conservative administration. Me, myself, my group, the Independent group managed to steer the ship away from the rocks last year. We're not yet anywhere near heading into open water, we're still in the shallows and there's a chronic underfunding from government and with the costs shunting that the County Council are pushing on to this authority, as far as waste transfer to the tune of many millions of pounds, we are from from being out of those shallows.Under the stewardship of this 'shared' administration, I will be doing my upmost to ensure we on a direction towards open water and not onto the rock that the Conservatives would have driven us."
Appointments to Working Groups
Electoral Abuse
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| Cllr Mohammed Iqbal |
- Ask the Returning Officer to write to the Electoral Commission asking for an independent investigation by all authorities concerned to ensure no irregularities have occurred.
- Write to HM Government to introduce legislation giving Returning Officers the power to reject postal votes where suspicious harvesting/storage of postal votes is taking place in a particular area.
"I heard all sorts of things about a Councillor in Bradley ward going door-to-door, collecting postal votes, collecting postal votes that had not been completed, taking them off people's mantelpiece, and that Mr Mayor is quite frankly, illegal."
Cllr David Whipp is then stifled from giving more details under concern from the Conservative Leader, Nadeem Ahmed, and Head of Legal, Howard Culshaw, despite Cllr D. Whipp standing and speaking defiantly.
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| Chief Executive Rose Rouse |
"It's really important that we remember the rules of this chamber, we're here to discuss the issues, keep it to the issues. Keep people's names and personalities out of this please. These are serious allegations, and let's have the proper authorities look at them properly."
Cllr David Whipp (Lib Dem) continues:
"During the election, I reported my concerns to the Returning Officer who, eventually, referred the matter to the police, both the Returning Officer and the police did not act in order to satisfy my concerns, and I am raising these issues here as a privilege because I think they are serious, very serious indeed, and they have not been sufficiently investigated by the resource agencies that ought to have done this.
We find ourselves in a position where there are very serious questions to be asked, and answered, in terms of Bradley ward."
Highway Maintenance
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| Cllr Dorothy Lord |
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| Cllr Ash Sutcliffe |
Taxi Licensing
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| Cllr Faraz Ahmed |
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| Cllr Neil Butterworth |
"If the Councillor (Butterworth) wants to put his trust in the officers to make all the decisions then he shouldn't be sat in this chamber, he should resign tonight and go and enjoy the rest of his life."
Cllr Tom Whipp (Lib Dem) says he feels it would be inappropriate for the full Council to make the decision at this point, claiming many members of the chamber did not have a strong enough grasp of the policies of the Taxi Licencing and PROPOSES:
- The Taxi Licencing committee come to a view on the changes it wants to the licencing policy to refer to the Executive.
- Request a report by the licencing officers of what the current applications and appeals process is, so the Executive can come to an informed view on whether to review the policy.
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| Head of Legal Howard Culshaw |
"Taxi licencing is not an Executive function/matter, and it shouldn't have any veto over it, because it's the Council that makes the Taxi licencing policy."
The amendment by Cllr Tom Whipp (Lib Dem) is SECONDED by Mohammad Hanif (Ind).
Cllr Kieran McGladdery (Con) PROPOSES shortening the original motion to:
"Taxi Licencing committee to review the policy."
Website
https://www.pendle.gov.uk/info/20011/council_and_councillors
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-2fWzfXm9M