Councillor is disqualified
A NEWBURY town councillor has lost his seat on the council after not attending any meetings for six months.
Jeff Cant, a Conservative representing the Clay Hill ward since May 2019, was removed from the council on October 30, before sending a resignation letter.
He had been close to losing his seat for the same reason in April, but attended a meeting close to the end of the six-month period, retaining his seat.
Mr Cant, who is also a councillor on West Berkshire Council and regularly attends meetings there, said he’d found it difficult to manage the workload of being on the district council as well as the town council, while the coronavirus pandemic had caused pressing business issues for him.
He said: “As this is an unpaid job and I’m already committing an awful lot of time to the district council, and I’ve got other business interests which I’ve been struggling to maintain because of the virus, I had to give up my connection.
“I did that formally, and the chief executive acknowledged it by email.”
Mr Cant accused the Liberal Democrats of playing games by suggesting he had been removed rather than resigned.
However, it is understood from chief executive Hugh Peacocke that Mr Cant was disqualified from the council for not attending
any meetings for six months.
He then tendered his resignation, praising the council for its work during the pandemic and wishing it well for the future.
Council leader Martin Colston (Lib Dem, Westfields) said: “It’s a shame for the residents of Clay Hill because they missed out on having one councillor, and also when he did turn up he had some useful things to say.
“It’s a real shame that someone gets elected then doesn’t turn up, that’s disrespectful I guess to the electorate in the first place.
“It also means we’ll have to hold a by-election which will take place in May, and that will cost us a load of money to run that, which we could’ve spent on something else.
“All round it’s not a good thing.”