The butcher, the greengrocer and the toyshop closed. “We have no responsibilities. She contacted the clerk of the parish council, who agreed to co-ordinate the scheme, and printed 500 flyers with the parish council’s phone number on them. A majority bloc on the council managed to vote these proposals through, but only after prolonged attempts to frustrate them. The parish council meeting took place in December 2020 but only went viral in February 2021. But parish councils are not required by law to do much at all – each one must decide how best to serve its community. Brian Tolver didn’t like the plan. Those in power will decide how the money is spent. He does not consider it an instrument for the administration of the town, but as a town in itself, a little world. At present, Handforth Parish Council’s kitty contains roughly £170,000, on top of which the council receives £90,000 a year in taxes. Napoleon called the English a nation of shopkeepers. We sat in silence for a moment as house prices rose around the country. Some question her authority. By implication, that meant there was no immediate chance of a by-election that might jeopardise the ratepayers’ hegemony. The first is purgatorial. She works for an organisation that advises parish councils and had been dispatched to broker peace between the warring parties in Handforth. There were accusations of corruption. She is recorded as Clerk to the meeting in the official minutes, but is not the official clerk of Handforth Parish Council. She was taking part in a meeting of the Handforth Parish Council. Jackie Weaver, Chief Officer of the Cheshire Association of Local Councils (ChALC), was brought into the meeting to moderate and provide guidance on the running of the council. Share to Reddit. That is until a few months ago, when Handforth became the most talked-about place in Britain after a video of a chaotic meeting of the parish council went viral. Share to Tumblr. When Weaver contradicts him, he and another councillor begin shouting at her. Speaking with Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain, Jackie said: "Both sides are going to argue that they're right, but I am still of the opinion I was correct because of the way the meeting was called. Tolver then said he refused to recognise the legitimacy of both meetings, telling Weaver she had no authority and to “stop talking”. Handforth went into meltdown just as Donald Trump was disputing the result of his second presidential campaign: the anger and division at the parish-council meeting represented the faintest echo of the roaring distrust and polarisation in parliaments and congresses around the world. Copy link to clipboard. This time Tolver insisted that all council business be paused. His name is Aled Brewerton. Why claim that meetings were illegal when they clearly weren’t? Brian Tolver: Is that as clerk or proper officer? Weaver peremptorily ejects Tolver. I asked Tolver what, in an ideal world, would be the future of Handforth Parish Council. Tolver then begins proceedings, all the while insisting that the meeting is, in fact, illegal. Please refer to me as Britney Spears from now on.". (Tolver denies objecting to the leaflets and says he was worried the clerk would be overburdened with calls.). Former councillors I spoke to looked visibly deflated when they recalled the long, often angry meetings at which they watched their ideas wither and die. During that time, relations between the parties grew increasingly fractious. When I asked locals what they needed, they said the same things that people say everywhere: more doctors, more schools and especially more housing. For 11 centuries between the unification of England in 927AD and the present day, very little happened in Handforth. Perhaps it does explain, in part, their desperate tactics to retain their majority, but it doesn’t explain the previous five years of obstruction, bickering and obfuscation. An ally of Tolver bellows at Weaver: “Read the standing orders. Throughout this time, he has felt obliged to run for a position on a representative body which he believes should not exist. This meant that, by early March 2020, only a few months were left before a swing vacancy opened up, potentially endangering the Ratepayers’ majority. Supermarket-delivery slots were booked up for weeks. The site was once part of the green belt, legally protected land on the outskirts of cities which is off limits to developers. Some in Handforth say that this is the reason why the ratepayers have been fighting so hard. “I don’t know that they did.” He claims to have been unaware of the desperate circumstances faced by some of his fellow townsfolk. This earlier meeting had been called to resolve a disagreement about the status of the meeting before that. One group runs the miniature trains in the park, another oversees the park’s upkeep, a third tends the station garden. Subscribe. Statements drafted by lawyers were read out at council meetings on a regular basis. Naturally, he said, this would apply to the automatic dismissal of Thompson as a councillor, which should now be postponed until three months after normal business resumed. Between them they divvy up a range of services, from social care and education to housing and waste collection (the last of these is immensely important in local elections), paid for by local taxes and a central-government grant. Many locals feel that no one has consulted them about which sites, if any, should be developed. In truth, it is a nation of committee members. First, an irrational but pronounced hatred of the Handforth Premier Inn. By the time it had established its own volunteering scheme and contacted Smith, she had been running her initiative for several weeks, albeit without using the parish-council phone. Other volunteer-run bodies exist in Handforth. Sometimes they even offer a measure of redress. Yet within a year, two shocks sent the council into a tailspin. Tolver seized the clerk’s official email account. In 2012, Cheshire East Council proposed a huge new development on the east side of Handforth bypass. I have come to believe that the reverse is true. Only what we take upon ourselves. Another councillor tries to make a point of order, but Tolver tells him he can’t because the meeting hasn’t started. The man who shouted about standing orders can be heard shrieking to himself. Though most funding comes from small donations from individuals, the parish council gives much larger sums on a semi-regular basis. I asked Tolver if he could think of any projects that the parish council would want to spend money on. If councillors fail to attend meetings for six months, they are automatically dismissed. The meeting, which you can watch in full on YouTube, is a calamitous pantomime of righteous fury and unmuted mics. This involved building several thousand new houses and increasing the population of Handforth by almost 50%. What happened at the Handforth Parish Council meeting? Village government had been dominated by local magnates since medieval times; as the national franchise was widened, parish councils were created to give more locals a voice. Hilarious.”. And the next one. To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map. In response Weaver removed him from the meeting and placed him in a virtual waiting room. England sees itself as a green and pleasant land but worries that it is becoming increasingly grey. To inquire about a licence to reproduce material, visit our Syndication site. Elliott Wright's Marbella restaurant burns down weeks after dad's Covid death, Lockdown rules change with travel across UK allowed for the 1st time since Xmas, Line Of Duty's top 'H' suspects — from Ted Hastings to Jo Davidson, Stranger 'told boy, 6, he had sweets in his van' in attempted abduction, ©News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. Giving his … I said, ‘Look, one day you’re going to wake up to a giant willy.’”, Napoleon called the English a nation of shopkeepers. As the Zoom call descended into absolute chaos, Jackie Weaver had to take charge by booting out the most disruptive member of the call, Brian Tolver. If the North Cheshire Growth Village is built, the council will make a windfall of roughly £2.2m. The clip, which inspired a … “That's what this is all about.”. “Welcome to Handforth,” the new chairman says. Parish Council. A fierce idealism burns within such proposals. He asked me the same question back. Crucially, higher authorities must consult parish councils, if not necessarily listen to them, about building projects. It’s already run by Cheshire East, explains Tolver. An atmosphere of suspicion prevailed – any new plan was assumed to benefit the councillor who had introduced it. The whole of England is made up of similar private kingdoms. Jackie Weaver, Handforth Parish Council star, is recreated as a cake 12 February 2021 By Christian Smith. The outcome, however it is resolved, will not stop the development of the 2,000 new homes. He made formal complaints against five councillors and the parish clerk. As a result, even less happened than had been happening before. Handforth Parish Council is his private kingdom and he would rather see it destroyed than pass into someone else’s hands. England has one of the most byzantine systems of local government in the world. Handforth’s residents grew rich as the sense of community shrunk: there was more money, but less there. Brewerton, one of the ratepayers and a non-practising solicitor, wrote back contending that it wasn’t. The monitoring officer at Cheshire East, who oversees the conduct of councillors, received formal complaints from both sides. This year, he became famous for telling Jackie Weaver to read and understand the standing orders. "The Sun", "Sun", "Sun Online" are registered trademarks or trade names of News Group Newspapers Limited. Exclusive: Jackie Weaver, the Handforth legacy and her message to Jenrick 18 February 2021 By Jessica Hill It is only two weeks since the emergence of footage of a Handforth Parish Council meeting catapulted the chief officer of the Cheshire Association of Local Councils Jackie Weaver into stardom, but she tells LGC it feels like much longer. Clerk Jackie Weaver during a meeting of Handforth Parish Council (Image: PA). Property prices rose, prompting the building of more houses, and development filled the town’s empty spaces. Those still taking part in the meeting then voted to refuse the three men back into the meeting with Cllr Cynthia Samson likening one to a "laughing hyena". “May I start?”. A hamlet near Manchester, it hosted a large prisoner-of-war camp during the first world war and a Royal Air Force depot during the second world war. The project showed how quickly a strong consensus that something should be done can dissolve into fierce disagreement over how to do it. CAPTION. But the town is being crunched from both sides: its proximity to Manchester makes it attractive both to commuters and to émigrés priced out of Wilmslow, a wealthy town to the south. The ratepayers focused on keeping down parish-council spending; they also vocally opposed the development of the Handforth green belt. More than 200 new houses are under construction at the end of Meriton Road, where lorries thunder up and down all day. For some years, Tolver has thought that the parish council should either be dissolved or re-absorbed into the town council of neighbouring Wilmslow. The Zoom meeting on December 10, 2020, ended in chaos with those taking part trading insults and throwing one another out of the online call. People who needed help, he said, should turn instead to Cheshire East, the body organising the local pandemic response. He gave me a definitive answer: “Proper adherence to laws and rules is a starting point. Many felt quietly appalled at how much time they had wasted. From that point on, the council split down the middle: each faction called its own meetings and argued that those held by the other side were illegitimate. Jackie Weaver is the meeting clerk from the Cheshire Association of Local Councils. Then, in the 1990s, the government completed a bypass. Handforth sits within the jurisdiction of Cheshire East Council, which is responsible for the well-being of 380,000 people. Politics Inside Handforth: Jackie Weaver and the battle for England’s soul. Commenting is currently disabled on this article. Their position was complicated by the fact that Thompson seemed to have no desire to continue serving as a councillor. me. He didn’t answer my questions about his personal life, though at one point a Scottish woman could be heard entering the room before he hissed her away. Proper use of taxpayers’ money.” A parish council, unlike a local council, has no defined duties, he explained. Jackie Weaver became an internet star after removing and muting a number of councillors in a chaotic meeting of Handforth Parish Council. More than 1,000 people lined the streets of Handforth to pay their respects at his funeral. For other inquiries, Contact Us. Handforth, a town of 6,000 people, seemed to be a place of barely restrained resentment, where curtains twitch, looks kill and the houses seethe like kettles under sheets of thin, continuous rain. Report. The next month, she didn’t return. He said he would have to take a look at the numbers. The online meeting descended into chaos as members traded insults and threw each other out of the online call. One councillor took me to a park and showed me a path that trails off into the mud halfway around. He felt Handforth had been developed quite enough in the decades he’d lived there. The local authorities had been caught off guard. Rural areas often, though not always, operate under a two-tier system, in which a district council sits beneath a county council. I ask him why he didn’t call a meeting when the largest national crisis since the second world war struck the country, and he tells me that it is the clerk’s job to call meetings. Rates are an ancient form of local taxation: the word “ratepayer” is simply an old-fashioned way of saying “taxpayer”. Hellfire is unleashed. Parish councils, the lowest and most local form of local government, have expanded to fill some of the gaps. People objected to an after-school club, the creation of a parish-council Facebook page and the installation of security cameras on the main road. Jackie Weaver is the meeting clerk from the Cheshire Association of Local Councils. The clerk made a second attempt in May. There was also a dispute over whose back yard the memorial would be situated in. Second, a prevailing sense that I did not understand the central questions of this story: why try to reinstate a councillor who didn’t want to be reinstated? She said: "I've had so many comments, most positive, but I share your concern about social media when a few said things like 'I want to lock you in a burning building and not let out'.". So he helped found the Hands Off Handforth Green Belt campaign, which organised a petition and held a protest against the development. Share to Pinterest. And Handforth Parish Council will make a lot of money. The parish council could complete that path if it chose to. He doesn’t mention the war memorial or the food bank. "There is no way of stopping him from calling himself clerk. ), “One of them wanted something interactive that you could mould. There are parents’ groups, a Rotary Club and an active Church of England congregation. Parish councils should fix things, fund things, furnish the community with better public spaces and make the lives of locals marginally better, Over Zoom I asked Tolver what makes a good parish council. The later meeting appears to start with an unseen councillor mumbling “f**k off” under his breath. The meeting, which you can watch in full on YouTube, is a calamitous pantomime of righteous fury and unmuted mics. How about taking over the library? The youth centre? Now it’s a maze of scaffolding. Jackie Weaver: There’s no difference between clerk or proper officer. He looked at me with an expression close to despair. “Well did they all over the country?” he replies sceptically. Jackie Weaver: I am here offering support to Handforth Parish Council in the conduct of this meeting this evening. Only two things are certain: Handforth will never be the same again. In November, the ratepayers used a sub-committee under their control to move to suspend the clerk, pending a full investigation. This will transform Handforth, but whether it will rejuvenate the place or suck the life out of it is hard to predict. A back yard does not have defined dimensions. The most striking thing about the parish-council meeting was not the disagreement between two sides but the unabashed personal hatred on display. One described the atmosphere as “toxic and uncomfortable”. Tight-lipped skirmishes are not uncommon as rivals dispute how far the boundaries of their back yards – which may be purely conceptual – extend. 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. The combination of extreme parochialism and limited power means that parish councils attract two very different types of personality: the first organises fêtes, picks up litter and raises money to revamp local amenities; the second calls the police if you touch their bins. The acrimony bred mistrust on the council. Over the past 30 years, central government has stripped these local authorities of both power and money. She was taking part in a meeting of the Handforth Parish Council. But why didn’t he exercise his own prerogative to do so? Though they can’t undertake large-scale projects, parish councils give small communities a voice of protest against the actions of distant, impersonal government bodies. During a motion about the circumstances in which councillors should undergo criminal-records checks, ratepayer Jean Thompson stood up and left the meeting. 18/02/2021. A former councillor talked about an after-school club that she used to run with parish-council funding. Proposals were often blocked for no good reason and accusations of personal interest were levelled. As you approach a sign reads, “CHANGED PRIORITIES AHEAD”. Share to Facebook. Buy "You have no authority here Jackie Weaver, Handforth Parish Council" by memeasaurus as a Essential T-Shirt “It’s gone a bit better,” she told me. (This is why he appeared under the handle “Handforth PC Clerk” at the now-famous meeting clerked by Weaver. Councillors affiliated to the ratepayers gained a majority, sweeping to power with four seats on the seven-member council. I said, ‘Look, one day you’re going to wake up to a giant willy.’”. The seconds pass and still the meeting has not technically begun. 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