Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Council website ‘hijacked’ as war of words rages on
APARISH council website appears to have been “hijacked” during a war of words that even legendary clerk Jackie Weaver would struggle to sort out.
The parish council for the tiny upmarket village of Longhope has been embroiled in a row between different factions for months.
Now in the latest twist in the village-at-war saga the parish council website and its associated email addresses have disappeared from the internet.
Villagers, who number fewer than 2,000, get a message which says: “The webserver reported that an error occurred while trying to access the website”.
It is unclear if the website address has been taken over by trolls or if it is related to the ongoing internal row between councillors in the village on the outskirts of the Forest of Dean.
But Longhope PC believes it is “malicious” and has asked the Gloucestershire Association of Parish and Town Councils (GATPC) for help.
Councillors say they did not get any warning from the IT providers that the original domain was about to expire because the website was originally created by an outside email address, which they do not have access to. In a social media message to villagers it says: “Frustratingly the domain no longer appears to be available.
“Instead it would seem someone, other than the council, has purchased it. We can only surmise that this has been done maliciously.”
One of the councillors told the village Facebook group that a website design company has been given the go-ahead to set up longhopeparish council.co.uk so it should be up and running soon.
But it follows an extraordinary few months which has seen parish councillors fall out in echoes of the Jackie Weaver affair that went viral when she kicked councillors off a virtual extraordinary meeting.
Reasons behind the dispute are vague but it is believed to have stemmed from a minor falling out over the local recreation field which snowballed.
Late last month two out of four new Longhope councillors elected in May tried to call an extraordinary meeting to discuss a vote of no confidence in PC chairman Gary Nicolas.
Citing various rules and regulations the letter warned: “If this is not carried out then you are contravening your own Standing Orders and we will be forced to display the agendas around the village ourselves.”
Like Handforth PC, Longhope PC asked for advice and say GATPC told them the new councillors did not have the power to call the extraordinary meeting.
In a public statement the council expressed disappointment at “the tone and content of the document” and accused an unnamed rival of turning up at a councillor’s home unannounced, to make “false and potentially slanderous statements.
“To publicly display such aggressively discourteous behaviour towards any member of the council is unprofessional and quite frankly borders on harassment. This will not be tolerated,” said the letter of reply.
The next meeting of the council at the end of June looks set to be explosive but villagers will have to attend rather than watch from home
because the virtual meetings held during Covid-19 lockdown have come to an end.
GAPTC chief executive Alison Robinson said: “The chairman of Longhope parish council Cllr Nicolas has been in contact with GAPTC to request our support.
“I am aware that the council website is currently down and that efforts are being made to make it live again as a priority. In the meantime notices can be placed on the council notice boards.
“The next meeting will take place on June 21. This will be a physical meeting as virtual meetings for the full council are no longer permitted.”
Longhope district councillor Brian Robinson, a former Conservative turned independent, admitted it was unusual for parish council elections to be contested as Longhope’s was in May but tried to throw oil on troubled waters.
He said: “It’s not for me to have a view or have a say on how the parish council is run but I have always got on with members of Longhope parish council and these recent issues
seem unusual. So often these things are about personalities rather than policies and there are a lot of capable people in Longhope so in my opinion it will all settle down and everybody will start working together for the good of the community.”
But despite what he says, the row has echoes of Jackie Weaver who became a star when she cut off chairman Barry Tolver for shouting “You have no authority here Jackie Weaver”. Weaver, who was employed by Cheshire Association of Local Councils, became a household name in December 2020 when she was parachuted in to run the meeting and Andrew Lloyd Webber even composed a song about her.
Afterwards she said: “There is an element of bullying and bad behaviour in local councils and a lot of us are working very hard, and that includes central government, to try and do something about that.”
She said at least 99.99 per cent of parish council meetings were not that dramatic.
“They are often less exciting than we might hope,” she said.