With a living standards squeeze facing residents and an economic headwind blowing towards our high street businesses, Wymondham Town Council didn't have anything to discuss in November, so cancelled its full meeting. But this column couldn't let down its loyal supporters, who turn up on the terraces come rain or shine. So put on your scarf, strap on a big rosette and get spinning your rattle, it's kick off time for Town Council Watch.
With no A-team fixture, our focus switched to the Leisure, Environment, Enterprise and Tourism committee, chaired by a promising young player coming up through the youth ranks, Cllr Kim Carsok (Con).
Personally, I'd never heard of her.
Trees For Goalposts
In the public gallery were 5 or 6 members of that infamous local firm, the Women's Institute, who fortunately behaved impeccably throughout. They were there to speak in favour of an idea to plant a new sweet chestnut tree on the Fairland as part of the Queen's Green Canopy initiative.
Councillors liked the proposal despite being wary of placing the tree directly in the centre of the open space. And once an amendment to ensure a native species was chosen (British trees for British picnickers), the measure was approved to a round of applause from the gathered WI members.
A great atmosphere inside Kett’s Park tonight.
Board Score
Next, the committee discussed funding an upgrade to display boards at the Tourist Information Centre in the Market Cross, to be created in conjunction with Wymondham Heritage Society. After a short verbal kickabout, it was decided to approve the measure and let the Clerk use his discretionary spending powers to pay for the boards, once the designs had come back to council to be approved.
Bogged Down on Football Pitches
Then the ball bobbled onto the topic of football pitches. A topic that proved far more entertaining than you’d imagine.
Cllr Carsok asked the Clerk for an update on a number of issues about the Kett’s Park pitches, which the Town Council maintains but leases to South Norfolk Council. One bugbear according to conversations she’d had with Norfolk FA, youth football clubs and South Norfolk Council was the length of the grass:
“They asked that the grass for football pitches is 30mm. They’ve regularly been measuring it at 40 to 50mm.” reported Ms Carsok to the committee.
Well. Councils love kicking things into the long grass don't they?
The Clerk, whose job is to manage the maintenance of pitches, decided attack was the best form of defence:
“Can I ask you why you attended a meeting and who invited you to the meeting and who you were representing at this meeting”?
Town Council Watch presumes the several hundred people in Wymondham that elected her…
But Ms Carsok’s back four weren’t going to be troubled:
“They asked me if I could potentially help, because they felt that they weren't entirely sure multiple people were aware of the issues, because they've been going on for so long that Wymondham Town United Football Club has cancelled, in the last year, 123 games because of the state of the pitches, so they've asked for outside help to ensure that they don't have to cancel future games.”
Elected councillors talking to people in the community to help solve an issue? Apparently a bookable offence at Wymondham Town Council.
The Clerk decided to have another attempt on goal:
“I have to say I'm a little bit surprised as you've emailed me to say that you didn't attend it in any capacity representing the Town Council and now you're telling me that you did.”
But Carsok cleared her lines once more:
“I attended as a councillor. I did not attend giving the view of the council as a whole. I attended as a person who is a councillor and is there to represent, and hear issues about what’s going on in the community and I am very much entitled to do so.”
End-to-end stuff. Entertaining for the neutral.
Cllr Carsok resumed: “Could you please share with us that information, so is it possible to reset the mowers to 30 mil?”
Oh yeah. I’d forgotten that’s what they were talking about.
The Clerk provided an explanation about how much more complicated a pitch mower is than your home mower but eventually conceded that it should indeed be possible.
“Perfect thank you”, replied Ms Carsok: “um… so the grass will be cut to 30 mils where possible?”
“Sorry I didn't say that.” deflected the Clerk. “Sorry the message has been received, my groundsmen would cut it in accordance with the agreement.”
“Okay which says 30. They would prefer it to be nearer to 30 mil than 30 to 40.” persisted Ms Carsok.
“If you read the agreement between the two parties, there are two different levels of the grass depending upon the season, the time of the year.” scrabbled the Clerk on the goal line.
“Right and in season, when they're playing football, which is now, they'd like it to be cut to 30 mil, so I'm just sharing that information so everyone's aware.” Carsok finished.
Here’s a quick piece of football trivia for anyone reading that wasn’t aware. South Norfolk Council like their pitches cut to 30mm. Who knew?
Cllr Penny Hubble (Con) then wanted to know why 120 games had been cancelled.
“It’s quite simple”, harrumphed the Clerk. “you have no knowledge of what's happened in the past and how many games have been cancelled previously so the figure that you've quoted there is not surprising to me”.
A deadpan Cllr Hubble came back: “You're quite correct that I don't have this knowledge and that's why I asked the question and thank you for answering my question”.
For Cllr Robert Savage (Con), all this detail business was too much for a Tuesday evening: “I'm a little bit disappointed at the degree of detail that the question has been brought to this council, uh this committee, it's not normal in my view to go into this kind of detail.”
“We’re all here in a voluntary capacity.” came the response from the Chair.
The casual onlooker might have started to doubt this was a friendly we were watching.
