The husband of a Lib-Dem Councillor has caused a stir at The
Town Hall by distributing a newsletter to members claiming that Eastbourne is
to lose its Dog Warden. The leaflet points out, quite correctly, what a good
job the Dog Warden does across the Town and calls on Councillors to ‘Stop the
cut and keep our dog welfare officer’. This bizarre development follows recent
concern expressed by Conservatives over the findings of a staff survey
conducted by Eastbourne Borough Council which identified low staff morale and
allegations of bullying.
Leader of the Conservative Opposition, Cllr David Elkin
commented, “you can understand why such
a high proportion of Council staff feel this way if you see popular and
efficient officers thanked for their efforts with a redundancy notice. I am also tempted to question what kind of an
administration conducts policy debate in this way? You have the spouse of a
member distributing these letters to other members, telling them what is going
on, and then someone else removing these letters from the in trays of
opposition members before they have had a chance to collect them ! It is both bonkers and dodgy in the extreme”
Shadow Cabinet Spokesman for Environment, Cllr Tom Liddiard
also commented adding “we were disappointed,
during the recent budget process, that
the Lib-Dem administration refused to back our proposal to double resources
in this important area and provide sufficient to employ an extra dog warden. I will be calling for their crazy plans to leave
us with no dog warden at all to be hastily abandoned”.
Following the leaflet having been distributed to Councillors, some having gone missing and my release of this release, things have gone very quiet. We understand that the popular dog warden concerned has been told not to talk to anyone about the situation. Rest assured that my colleagues and I have taken seriously the numerous expressions of concern we have received on the subject and will not relent in holding the Council to account.
Links:
Links:
The Council's current link to the Dog Warden information on the EBC Website (seems rather hypocritical given this news story):
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