My life will be forever Autumn. Cause you’re not here. Cause you’re not heeeeeeere. So sang Justin Hayward in Jeff Wayne’s musical War Of The Worlds. And as the seasons change, that’s how poor old TCW feels, after Wymondham Town Council voted to axe YouTube streaming of their sessions for the past 3 months to try and “dry out” your beloved columnist of material.

And as you can tell from the next 1300 words covering their latest goings on, it’s worked an absolute charm.

The chances of anything coming from TCW are a million to one they said... But still he comes. 🎵 DUM DUM DUUUUM! DUM DUM DUUUUUUM! 🎵

Not fellow travellers

May saw Wymondham Town Council welcome their newest elected recruit, Cllr Jonathan Purle (Con), with trademark hospitality.

After a group of travellers occupied part of Ketts Park, the new Central Wymondham representative posted on Facebook that he’d reported the situation to the relevant authorities, who’d be handling things from there.

But the post ruffled the competitive feathers of credit hungry colleagues, who’d also been working on the issue:

“Well done the councillors who worked together last night and today with Town Council, District and the police to ensure travellers moved on from Ketts Park.” posted Cllr Suzanne Nuri-Nixon (Lib Dem) to an audience of 17,000 users on the Wymondham Ways Facebook group, before training her crosshairs on nasty old Cllr Purle:

“I’m afraid the new councillor, who has yet to properly meet the rest of his colleagues, sought to claim the win 😬 Trying to ‘work’ with this individual will be a challenge I’m sure…”

Nothing like approaching new people with an open and tolerant mind is there?

The revealing post attracted much ire from the Wymondham public: “So is that what local politics is about now, being the one who can claim a win?” asked one. “shameful point scoring”, “playground behaviour”, “unprofessional”, “not a good look”, “not very mature” others’ feedback piled in.

And on it went: “A little bitter after a resounding loss at the recent election probably”, “does little to inspire confidence among residents”, “Shouldn’t you all be working together rather than putting people down?”.

Hear hear. It’s time to turn down the temperature of Wymondham politics, which is why TCW has raked the whole thing back up here, months later.

The hoo-ha was eventually picked up by local publishing minnows, the Eastern Daily Press, where Mr Purle deadpanned: “I was warned [..] there were a couple of characters [..] who are notorious shitposters on Facebook”. “[..]the voters managed to ignore them, so I’m sure I can.”

Oh, TCW hates to see things descend like this. He really does.

Flush your cache

In June, TCW was greatly excited to see that the Town Council had launched a new gov.uk website.

No longer hosted by a Wymondham company, the new site offers a few improved features. Minutes and agendas are now conveniently located on the same page for example. And draft minutes are helpfully published a lot earlier than in times gone by.

A boon for news-hungry pillocks pillars of the community like TCW.

Now, the colours public bodies choose to brand themselves with can often be a thorny issue - what with politics and the associations people make with particular colours. So it’s been a relief to see the Town Council plump for a fetching shade of Dysentery Brown as the colour scheme for their entire online presence.

Few will argue this is an inappropriate choice.

Very charitable indeed

With no plans to organise a town centre Christmas event themselves this year, TCW was overjoyed to hear in July that the Town Council would at least be throwing an event to celebrate the next closest thing we have to the coming of Christ: Mayor of Wymondham, Dave Roberts.

A paper by, erm, Cllr Dave Roberts (Lib Dem) proposed a new Mayor’s Vanity Charity Concert to be held at Wymondham Abbey in December, to raise money for local good causes. The event would cost approximately £1000 to put on and any profits from ticket sales would be donated to charity.

If even just a pound is raised by the end of it all, it will have been worthwhile, dear reader.

But who could organise such an event? Would it be Wymondham-based Clear Company, organisers of Wynterfest among other local events? Apparently not. Cllr Roberts’ proposal had instead handpicked a Costessey-based company for the job.

Now, regular readers will know TCW’s commitment to journalistic excellence and public service, so imagine his relief when research found the company chosen belongs to one of Mr Roberts’ fellow Liberal Democrat councillors on South Norfolk Council.

Phew! You can’t just let anyone organise an event of this stature. So what better guarantee of quality than one of your fellow councillors from the same party as you?

Of course, TCW would love to print Cllr Roberts’ explanation of the doubtless totally understandable circumstances behind proposing to award a council contract to a company with such a close political connection. But alas, there’s no streaming for poor old TCW to quote from at the moment.

Curse my luck. Curse it indeed.

Trouble in paradise

In August, the notoriously delicate TCW was rocked to his core to see another bout of comment section fisticuffs break out between town councillors on Facebook. This time about a tree.

Tensions spilled over about a Greening Wymondham article that had questioned South Norfolk Council for felling a mature tree in Priory Gardens. The squirrel towerblock had been deemed unsafe by the authority but the ecological group weren’t so convinced.

And their article seemed to unearth more festering bugs than you’d find in a mouldy old tree stump:

“Wonder if there was [sic] any objections from [the] Green councillor in WTC planning minutes” goaded a user by the name of Dave Roberts on the public page.

“I don’t normally rise to fatuous remarks on social media,” Green Party town councillor Paul Barrett bit back. “But as you are dragging me into this - the Town Council’s application to fell this tree did not come before the Planning Committee so our views could not be minuted.”

Before another commenter under the name of Lucy Nixon chimed in to school Mr Barrett: “[..] the discussion did come to planning re not putting the TPO on that tree [..] I don’t know which meeting it was so can’t trawl through to find the minutes but it is all there and there were no objections from anyone on the committee or the public.”

Someone should check the stream.

Streaming strop stretched

With sinister local media outlets the EDP and Wymondham Magazine continuing their dastardly conspiracy to make the Town Council do and say things people find ridiculous, the student union council held crunch talks in August, and voted to continue their YouTube streaming strike until January, to keep those pesky reporters’ beaks out of their business.

Being Wymondham Town Council, the session on how better to engage with the public and press happened behind closed doors - after voting to exclude the public and press.

A good start there then.

Undeterred, TCW smeared himself in lard and climbed into the ventilation shafts of the council’s £2 million Ketts Park fortress, to have a good old earwig about what was being said. And his ears were soon burning:

Cllr Dave Roberts explained why the council had pulled the plug on streaming:

“A certain magazine have over the past year decided to take it upon himself to use whatever method he’d like to attack or demonise councillors.”

Pfft. Lazy analysis. TCW plays the ball. Not the man. And it’s been three years. Three years! Back when Dave and friends were still knee high to a grasshopper.

At least it was good news for TCW’s kneecaps: “[..] we have no grounds to stop them publicising what they want.”

Cllr Paul Barrett (Green) didn’t like the column but said: “[..] the answer isn’t to remove people’s access to the democratic process.” “[..] if one dominant party decided to block vote, there’s no point in other councillors turning up, because the debate is lost. It’s not recorded anywhere. It’s not visible to anyone. It’s very very undemocratic.”

Cllr Suzanne Nuri-Nixon was feeling sorrowful: “[..] it’s hard for me to accept that we can’t have the cameras on, because it does stop democracy up to a point [..] however it’s been weaponised against us.” “[..] I don’t see why we should help them write their magazine.”

How has TCW managed all these years?

Cllr Lucy Nixon cited a harrowing case where the EDP had got the wrong end of the stick on Wynterfest being cancelled. The council complained to press regulators IPSO, who according to Ms Nixon scolded the EDP thus: “[..] the truth was available. It was live streamed. You chose to ignore it.”

The case for streaming, well made. Oh hang on, she voted against it too. Go figure.

Cllr Lowell Doheny (Lab) wanted to know if the council had publicised the fact that any member of the public can request downloads of the meetings, which are actually still being recorded.

”That completely defeats the point of what we’re trying to discuss!" interjected Cllr Julian Fulcher (Lib Dem).

But Cllr Roberts had reassurance for everyone: “[..] Wymondham Magazine cannot get a copy of the download, because they will be refused.”

Gar. Foiled again! Be terrible if members of the public started requesting the downloads and sent them to tcw@wymondhammagazine.co.uk. Terrible!