Christmas Spirit !

As reported previously, Tuesday 19th December saw the pre Christmas Council Meeting.

The majority of the Council supported the motion on fairtrade, with a number of members from the various political groups speaking in favour.

However not everyone in attendance at the meeting was full of ‘Christmas spirit’ with rumour’s going round about troubles in the Conservative group.

The rumour, which has now been confirmed in this week’s Buxton Advertiser was that Cllr Alan Wells the leader of the Conservative Group and Deputy Leader of the council had effectively been sacked from the Conservative Group / Party, following a summons to a meeting of the Buxton West Branch of the Conservative Association to answer a grievance.

From the report in the paper, the grievance to which he was summoned to answer was effectively over his stance supporting the proposals for the food hall, something that as executive member in charge of this area he had taken the lead on.

The meeting apparently did not go well and after finding out that following the meeting he would probably not be selected as a candidate for the next elections Alan resigned from the Conservative Party, closely followed by his partner Cllr Glennis Kirk (Executive member for the Environment).

Interestingly his ward colleague Cllr John Faulkner, the only one of the Conservatives to vote in favour of the food hall, is not only facing no sanction from his local branch, but has also taken his former colleagues job as leader of the Conservative group !
Overall it is likely the departure of these two former top Tories will have little effect on the council as they are been allowed to keep there jobs until the elections in May.