Welcome once more to the quarterly round up of all things Wymondham Town Council covering September, October and November. And thanks to all of those who wrote in to say how much you miss the column in the off months.

I do know your handwriting, mother.

Wish you were here!

It was heartening to learn from a councillor’s official public Facebook page that a group of four members of the Town Council had popped off on their holibobs together in September, for some much needed R&R.

It’s been a busy year after all. With each councillor in the post having passed a motion last year declaring a Climate Emergency, the quad jetted off to Turkey on a 378kg of CO2 per person emitting return flight, to take their minds off the world’s impending thermal doom.

And to think people worried the emergency declaration was just insincere posturing.

“The time for procrastinating on [climate change] has long gone.”, warned one of the holidaymakers, Mayor Judith Chalmers Suzanne Nuri-Nixon (Lib Dem) while voting to declare the emergency back in 2023. While fellow jetsetter Cllr Michael Palin Lucy Nixon (Lib Dem) agreed, telling people in Wymondham at the time: “All of us need to be doing our bit.”

Absolutely. And it’s great to see our councillors showing us the way.

Youth Council

The Town Council got down with the kids in September with a totally rad idea.

No, they've not built a skill new skatepark that polled local teenagers ranked near the bottom of their priorities (not yet anyway).

Instead they voted to set up a wicked new Youth Council at Wymondham High School and bunged them £1000 to spend on projects of their choice.

Encouraging a new generation of councillors? This is an idea TCW can get behind.

Zero Fox Given.

September saw the Town Council debating that great unifying topic of British public opinion; foxhunting.

Local trail hunting group Dunston Harriers had written to ask permission to use Market Place for their Boxing Day meet - an event that social media reliably informs TCW is either a cherished long-standing, countryside market town tradition or the most deplorable thing to happen to Wymondham in the history of humanity.

A bit like this column then really...

Up stepped TCW superfan Cllr Robert Savage (Con) to make the case for the horse-mounted bugle botherers. He urged councillors to consider that they should be “making decisions on behalf of residents, and not on your own personal opinions” saying people in town “vote with their feet by turning up on Boxing Day” to watch the “spectacle” in their “thousands”.

Sticking up for the nation’s most well regarded chicken shredders, the Mayor cited the lack of a risk assessment as reason to deny the application.

But it was the health and safety of the other councillors TCW was worried about, as they tripped over each other to come out with the strongest condemnation of trail hunting, in the meeting and local media afterwards:

Cllr Lucy Nixon called it “historically cruel”. Cllr Paul Barrett (Green) was “fundamentally against what Dunston Harriers and these types of groups represent”. While Cllr Michael Rosen (Lab) said: “Times have changed, the town has changed. It’s a tradition that’s had its day.” Construction expert Peter Broome (Con) built a fence to sit on and abstained.

The request was denied and the Boxing Day hunt won’t start in town.

Shame all this animosity though. If councillors got in the room with the hunters, they'd probably find they had more in common than they realised.

After all, many of them share a joint passion of getting on their high horses and blowing their own trumpet.

Defo Not Wynterfest

By the time this issue hits doorsteps, the Town Council’s Definitely-Not-Wynterfest^TM Christmas event will have happened, marking the first time in recent memory the council’s got directly involved in organising a mass town centre event.

Some fresh, proactive thinking from the new Town Council has seen them use the Town Coordinator employee, hired by the previous Town Council, to organise an event based around turning on the Christmas lights, purchased by the previous Town Council, held around the Market Place Christmas tree, whose permanent base was installed by the previous Town Council.

Credit to the new council there then.

But where Wynterfest had been too successful “commercial” in the eyes of today’s Town Council, the completely different Definitely-Not-Wynterfest^TM event - publicised using images from previous Wynterfests and promising suspiciously similar music, rides and stalls to previous years - would “not allow commercialism to take over”.

With that business-friendly rhetoric ringing in their ears, local firms were thrilled to then receive a begging email from the council, inviting them to cough up £500 to sponsor a sign at the event. For 3 hours. In the dark.

Sponsorship? Advertising? Nice to see commercialism not being allowed to take over.

Bleed Kits

In September the Town Council voted to install ‘bleed kits’ within existing defibrillator units around town. The kits contain vital gear to stop catastrophic bleeding for incidents including stabbings, with Cllr Dave Roberts (Lib Dem) warning that people can bleed out in just 2 minutes.

Shame on you for expecting a joke at the end here, reader. Go away and think about your life.

Forking Hell

Anglian Water had allotment holders in Wymondham spluttering thermos flasked tea all over their turnips in November. The water company wanted their land back, which the Town Council lease off them. And gave tenant plotters 12 months to sling their hooks.

TCW’s legal team took a rare break from processing complaints to conclude that the Town Council is legally obliged to at least investigate finding a replacement. The issue could easily become a political headache.

Either way, Anglian Water’s decision has delivered a big dollop of the brown stuff for authorities to deal with.

So a first time for everything, eh?

Musical Chairs

Following the earth-shatteringly sad news that the Town Council’s ever jovial full-time Clerk is retiring to his gold-plated pension, the council swiftly appointed a replacement in November.

Having advertised the role externally, councillors eventually chose current Deputy Clerk, Laura Trabucco for the position.

The rapid-fire promotion marks an eye-openingly stratospheric rise for the Deputy Clerk, who was only just hired this summer and whose role had only just been created.

TCW’s condolences go out to any external candidates whose credentials unfortunately didn’t make the grade during the hiring process. They can always apply for the now-vacant Deputy Clerk role when it’s advertised.

One happy side benefit of the near-instant promotion will be that the outgoing Clerk has had a handy few months to show the person who’s now his successor the ropes.

Very fortunate indeed. In fact, mystics might wonder if the whole thing was written in the stars all along.

As part of a new rolling featurette, TCW’s been keeping himself busy during the long dark nights making some Freedom Of Information requests on local councils, to see what dirt public interest stories he could uncover.

Everyone's got their hobbies.

‘Local Press Issue’

Step forward a fascinating set of emails involving Wymondham Town Council that point to good old TCW not exactly being flavour of the month among councillors over at Fortress Kett’s Park.

Perish the thought.

As far back as January, a council employee had been asking to advertise the local economy boosting Visit Wymondham initiative in Wymondham Magazine:

“[It's] delivered to every Wymondham household, circa 8,700 every quarter...”, the employee enthused, before hailing the publication “...the most cost-effective way of reaching residents...”

Gosh, it is good actually isn’t it?

But emails show the request was ungratefully received, amid some top level thin-skinnery behind the scenes.

A tetchy meeting saw town councillors cite TCW’s regular light-shining, humour-prodding column as reason not to use the Magazine to advertise Visit Wymondham, which had been designed to benefit embattled local traders in town.

TCW just hates it when egos get in the way of progress for the town, dear reader.

Following up, town councillors then formally emailed the employee asking them to “not interact” with Wymondham Magazine.

Must have been something I said...