Hall Payment go-ahead leads to parish row

'Improper conduct' claims at late-night meeting.

Tamworth Herald 1976

A clash over how one village should help another to pay for a new village hall left a parish council divided at a noisy meeting this week.

Arguments and protests dominated a four-hour meeting of Harlaston council which ended at midnight on Tuesday.

Newcomers to the council were ranged against their longer serving colleagues, there were suggestions of improper conduct, and one member of the public who had listened to all the wrangling said he would be asking for an investigation by the Ombudsman.

The trouble, ironically, is over Harlaston's cooperation in meeting part of the cost of a new village hall being built at Edingale to serve both villages. 

Edingale village hall committee and parish council had asked Harlaston councillors to consider making a contribution.

And at a meeting of the Harlaston Council in November it was agreed - but only just - that a payment of £400 should be raised from the rates, more than doubling this year's parish levy.

The move was proposed by farmer, Mr Evan Mercer, in his 18th year as chairman of the seven-strong council which he represents on the village hall committee.

Three other councillors who voted with him included Mr Eric Tiso. He also serves on the hall committee, but as a representative of Harlaston and Edingale Old People's Commiittee.

There were votes against from three more members who joined the council last May.

They had called for the question of payment to be deferred until after a special parish meetinghad been held to consult residents on how the money should be raised - on the rates or by other means. Such a move was, the minutes show, defeated on the chairmans casting vote, breaking a 3-3 stalemate with one abstention.

The arguments began this week as soon as the minutes were read. Two of the members who had sought to delay a decision, Mr Robert Marchington and Mr Eddie Wood, claimed the proper procedure had not been followed at the previous meeting. 

They said that neither Mr Mercer nor Mr Tiso should have taken part in the discussion - or voted- on the village hall contribution because of their membership on the hall committee. 

Mr Mercer himself disputed the records on where he had used his casting vote. Later the council was advised that no payment should be made until the District Auditor had been called in. And so it went on... and became the longest meeting of the council in memory.

The payment go-ahead still stands. But more trouble is forecast, perhaphs reaching a new peak when the chairman's pen is poised above the cheque. Approval will be needed at a future meeting before it can be written.

Mr Marchington said later he did not think there was any doubt about the usefulness of Edingale hall to Harlaston. He thought the majority of people in the area would be happy to support it financially.

What he, Mr Wood and Stan Richardson objected to, he explained, was money being "forcibly taken" from parishioners via the rates.

We wanted time to go back to the people and consult them first. Most of them might have said they prefferred to see the contribution raised by voluntary effort.

"In fact most of the residents I have spoken to are against it going on the rates. Mr Mercer is a very enthusiastic man who has done a lot for the village - there's no argument about it. But he is depriving the village of their chance to have their say at a parish meeting."

Mr Mercer feels it was quite in order for him to have proposed the payment and voted on it.

"If it was not in order, then it's not right for the parish council to appoint people to outside bodies, and I am wasting my time serving on the hall committee," he said.

"Only a pecuniary interest would have disqualified me from speaking or voting, and that certainly doesn't apply in this case. There's no suggestion that it does. There was also no reason why Mr Tiso should not have taken part in the discussion and voting."

Mr Mercer daid he thought it fairer that the payment should be taken from the rates, and so presumably did those of his colleagues that supported him.

He added: "Before the November meeting I took advice from the Parish Council's Association on whther it was in order to make a contribution. I was told that it was. And I thought it my duty to put the case for the payment."

Council clerk Mrs Margaret Grove said: "Nothing was hidden at the November meeting. It was all open and above board, and the chairman and Mr Tiso declaired their membership of the village hall committee.

She said that the feelings of both men had been hurt by what had been said at this weeks meeting. Mr Mercer did more work for Harlaston than anyone else, and Mr Tiso was also an enthusiastic village and church worker.