Councillor quits ruling body as skips row saga rumbles on.

Carnoustie: Town member says he is ‘disillusioned’ with recent events

Another councillor has stepped down from the ruling group of Angus Council in protest over the latest twist in the skip sites saga.

Carnoustie Independent David Cheape’s decision came after a special meeting of the full council confirmed a ban on trailers more than 6ft in length at Brechin, Carnoustie, Forfar, Kirriemuir and Monifieth on health and safety grounds.

In September, deputy council leader and Arbroath independent David Fairweather also resigned from the rainbow alliance over what he branded the “bungled handling” of skip site operations across the area.

Mr Cheape’s shock move leaves Carnoustie as the only burgh in the district without a representative in the ruling administration after his frustration boiled over with a group he said lacked “energy, ambition and ideas and is reticent to change.”

Mr Cheape was elected at the end of last year after winning the by-election triggered by the death of former Angus Provost Helen Oswald.

He slated what he described as “totally ludicrous” blanket ban on pedestrian access to skip sites and criticised the new trailer rules, which will come into force with immediate effect.

Following the meeting, he said: “I have become increasingly disillusioned about who actually runs the council and how policy is formed. It seems more and more that council officers recommend policy and the incumbent members simply rubber stamp it.”

On the recycling centres issue, he added: “Blanket restrictions covering all sites are not appropriate.

“Councillors are getting criticised heavily in both the media and on social media as approving everything put to them by officers on some new health and safety initiative that seems to have become necessary all of a sudden.

“It didn’t seem necessary last year or the year before that. In fact, it doesn’t appear to have been necessary in all the years we have run recycling centres to date.”

He continued: “It’s getting to the point where all members have to decide if they run council or simply agree to everything brought about by officers. If it’s the latter then we might as well all pack up and go home.”

gbrown@thecourier.co.uk