Trawden A councillor has been dismissed from his role on a parish council for non-attendance at meetings. Cllr David Storey has been removed from Trawden Parish Council after he failed to attend two council meetings between June 2020 and December 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. It comes after a court hearing in April ruled that correspondence via email during the pandemic - which Trawden Parish Council had been doing as a means of conducting their meetings - did not constitute as an official meeting and would be deemed unlawful. The case came about following the dismissal of former councillor, Craig McBeth late last year, for his non-attendance at meetings between April and October 2020.
EVERYTHING is up for grabs in Pendle as all its 12 new wards are up for election in May 6. The controversial Conservative-inspired changes to the borough s political map saw the number of councillors cut from the current 49 to 33. The number of wards was reduced from 17 to 12 meaning that how the party cards will fall on polling day is a real guessing game. Despite the controversy over the redrawn political map, the election will be overshadowed by the sudden death last month of veteran Liberal Democrat strategist Lord Tony Greaves. The general view is that the new wards will be largely neutral.
A council has legally dismissed one of its members after he failed to attend a meeting for six months. Craig McBeth, who was a member of Trawden Forest Parish Council near Colne, was absent from council meetings for half of 2020 and during that time did not uphold his duties as a councillor. Mr McBeth admitted this to the council and was officially dismissed in October. Despite this, he felt his dismissal was handled in error and has subsequently spent the last few months trying to be reinstated, including serving the council with an application for judicial review, which was later dismissed.