THE Conservatives won two of the three by-elections at last week’s local elections with the third taken back by the Independent councillor who was expelled from the seat last year for not attending meetings during the coronavirus lockdown. Conservative, David Staveley, who already sits on Craven District Council, where he is chairman of the Select Committee, won the Ribblesdale division seat of North Yorkshire County Council, the seat previously occupied by his ‘friend and mentor’, the late Cllr Richard Welch. His fellow Conservative, Robert Ogden, was voted onto Cllr Welch’s old Penyghent seat of Craven District Council, while David Pighills, Independent, reclaimed his old Barden Fell seat on the district council.
A TOWN councillor has insisted that he has been wrongly excluded from meetings. Cllr Peter Yeo has been forced from online meetings of Shaftesbury Town Council on several occasions since town council meetings switched to online. He claims the town council has used the wrong standing orders to exclude him – designed for unruly members of the public, rather than councillors. The town council has insisted that the legislation it is using is correct and legal. Cllr Yeo told the March online meeting of the town council that there is no legislation which can exclude him, or other councillors, from digital meetings of the council.