Park cash row: Arun closes door on public

A special meeting is being held on Tuesday (April 7) at which councillors will discuss the scrapping of a grant to Hotham Park Heritage Trust.

It will be the only matter on the agenda. But the one-off session of Arun District Council's performance scrutiny committee is being held behind closed doors. The council has decided to treat the review as exempt business.

This means only councillors and council officers will be entitled to attend the discussion at the council's Littlehampton offices.

The decision has been questioned by the trust's chairman, Rosemary Warren.

She said: "We should be allowed the right to defend ourselves in person. We do have a voice and we should be able to use it at the meeting."

The unease with the decision arose when it was revealed that Arun's councillor in charge of environmental services, Cllr Paul Wotherspoon, had agreed to withdraw the 10,000 grant which the trust had received.

The payment had been made from 1999 to 2008 during which time the trust helped the district council secure 2.2m of lottery funding for the park's refurbishment.

Trust volunteers have also raised thousands of pounds towards individual improvement projects.

A brief statement issued with Cllr Wotherspoon's decision said: "This report concludes that funding to this extent is inappropriate now that the restoration of Hotham Park is almost complete."

But the reasoning behind his decision has always been kept private because it concerns the council's financial dealings with an organisation.

However, Cllr Wotherspoon's move has been challenged by five Bognor councillors.

They said no consultation with the local councillors had taken place and the implications for the trust of losing the money had not been taken into account.

The five councillors '“ Paul Wells, Jeanette Warr, Simon McDougall, Jim Brooks and Francis Oppler '“ exercised the rarely-used right to 'call in' the decision for detailed scrutiny. It is this which will take place at the committee meeting.

Cllr McDougall said: "I see no reason why this matter should not be in the public domain.

"I believe the decision does deserve more scrutiny and I would think members of the public should be able to be there."

An Arun spokeswoman said the matter had to be in exempt business because it related to the financial affairs of an organisation which had dealings with the council.

The decision by Cllr Wotherspoon was also taken as exempt business in line with the council's rules, she added.

What do you think? Click here to send a letter or leave a comment below.

Click here to go back to Chichester news

Click here to go back to Bognor Regis news

Click here to go back to Midhurst and Petworth news

To tell us where in the world you are reading this story click on the link below to add yourself to our readers' map.

MAP