Editor's Note: brace yourselves, this is quite a long one.
It's all happening in Langport folks
Langport Town Council & Town Trust had their monthly meeting yesterday evening. There were around ten locals in the public seats, looking on.
Reading through council minutes and agendas isn't everyone's cup of tea so Carry On Langport will try to sum up some of what happened...especially to chairman Val Saunders.
Some things were voted on, some were discussed and others were brought up by onlookers in the public gallery.
4 of those in the public seats last night were councillors who resigned over the Hanging Chapel row last summer.
So in no particular order:
'Nobody told us'
A member of the Recreation Field Management Committee expressed anger that the town council didn't tell the committee that its funding [from Langport] is being cut from £4,500 to £3,500 per year. He pointed out that the rec' is a non-profit making organisation for the people of Huish and Langport.
A former town councillor sitting just up from him sniped "raise some money then"
'Raise some money then' ?! Come again? Bit rich coming from someone who voted to get rid of the Hanging Chapel last summer when she saw how much roof and brick work repairs might cost.
A former town councillor sitting just up from him sniped "raise some money then"
'Raise some money then' ?! Come again? Bit rich coming from someone who voted to get rid of the Hanging Chapel last summer when she saw how much roof and brick work repairs might cost.
Double yellows on the way opposite Academy
Double yellow lines are on the cards, just inside the top of St Mary's Park to stop the 'mayhem' that takes place outside people's houses there at each end of the school day. But there are concerns painting the new lines will just push school-run drivers further back into the estate, creating a new problem.
Get that bloody light out!
Eastover residents have told the council that the tennis court floodlights up the rec' are on at night for hours sometimes when nobody's using it. A solution's being sought.
I want to ride my bicycle!
Between Westover and Muchelney? Not for much longer matey.
The 1.5 mile-long old railway track between the bottom of Langport and the road between Muchelney and Drayton could soon be out of bounds. The licences to use the land are up this year and one privately-owned stretch is about to be auctioned off as part of a land sale. Councillors discussed but didn't come up with any solutions. Cost is a problem - communities in Muchelney, Drayton and Huish may be asked to chip in.
Huish won't like this...
No they won't and we don't blame them. Electoral boundaries are about to be changed with Curry Rivel being taken into the current Huish and Langport ward when we vote in district council elections. Trouble is, the new larger ward could be named 'Langport and Curry Rivel'. No mention of Huish whose land area and population is far bigger than Langport's. Councillors and members of the public agreed it would ruffle feathers. One councillor suggested a neutral name to keep everyone happy. 'The Levels' was one idea.
Been out walking? Need a drink?
There's a proposal to re-introduce a water fountain somewhere in Langport. We say 're-introduce' because we believe there was one not too many decades ago. Wasn't there one in that Edward VII coronation marble monument in the wall by the bank once?
Anyhow, Green Councillor Cara Naden - visiting Langport from her tree house in Butleigh - was looking for possible sites for the water tap.
"What about outside the men's toilets?!" shouted one onlooker, "You could just stick a supply pipe through the wall"
...which caused much hilarity. Even better, why not just walk on in and get what you want?
At the end of the town council meeting after a short break, Langport Town Trust matters were discussed.
(The trust owns and runs buildings like the Hanging Chapel, the Town Hall and the Ridgeway Hall on our behalf and is made up of our town councillors)
This is when it got serious...the last item on the agenda was to hear the district council's verdict on what councillor Val Saunders did over the summer.
Ms Saunders was reported to the district offices in Yeovil when she broke confidentiality in June by going public about a vote to offer the Hanging Chapel for sale to the Freemasons.
The district's advice to Langport Town Trust members was that she be sent for retraining and/or be removed as chair.
But after some minutes of discussion, our councillors (trustees) decided to go against the official advice and take no action whatsoever against Ms Saunders - and that was that.
This sparked outrage among the former councillors (who resigned over the issue) with one of them shouting from the back row "tenants of Trust properties will never trust this Trust again" or words to that effect - meaning that the councillors were, in effect, condoning Ms Saunders' breach of confidentiality.
Cllr Saunders' defence was and always has been that she went public about the vote 'in the public interest' - and her fellow councillors who we elected last autumn appear to agree with her.
Round and round we go.
Suffice it to say the individuals who had that secret vote and spent most of last summer denying it are no longer councillors and we have a new lot in charge who appear to be making efforts to secure the Hanging Chapel's future as a publicly-owned asset...expensive roof repairs or not!
Amen to that.
😊
