Is BTC running a secret society? They have not shown any full council minutes since January. After requests via this site still no minutes available. Surely they want the people they represent to be kept abreast of their decisions. Apparently councillors do read posts on this site so perhaps they can let us know how to access BTC full council minutes.

The Minutes of the last full Council meeting held on Tuesday, 9th March 2010 will be issued in draft form on Wednesday, 28th April prior to being approved or amended at the next full Council on Tuesday, 4th May 2010.

Cllr Francis Purdue-Horan.

Further to the post from 2010 I feel that once more it is necessary to ask if Bingham Town Council is a secret society, and more, for exactly whose benefit it operates.
There have recently appeared a glut of minutes from each of the different groups which have been outstanding for some time. As I write today the full planning committee meeting for November is the only meeting published since July, despite this meeting actually recording acceptance of the September minutes!
At this meeting Councillors Stockwood, M and Purdue-Horan propose that a new Community Centre be built, I think, as part of any new development to the North of Bingham. This was accepted meaning, I think, that despite the efforts of Councillors Davidson and Hull, the Council no longer supports any Community Centre Project on the South side of the Town, i.e. where we all live.

Later at the Public part of the meeting when asked about delays with the community centre at point 01 Councillor Barham simply "by confirming that the matter was still being discussed behind the scenes" - was no reference made to the decision taken only minutes earlier? If not why not?

The minutes themselves are often very cryptic, for example what on earth does this mean

04 TESCO PLANNING APPLICATION

Reference was made to information contained in an election leaflet.

What information, what about it, what was the point being made? given that the Tesco issue is still contentious, perhaps someone from the council can give us a complete explanation of this issue please?

I could go on but will see what this brings.

The cycle of Bingham Town Council Committee meetings and full Council is usually over a period of eight weeks, at the last full Council meeting, held on 10th January 2012, the minutes of the previous full Council meeting of 8th November 2011 and the minutes of Committee meetings held since then were formally approved.

The latest formally approved Minutes of any meeting will be the Policy & Resources Committee meeting, held on 13th Dec 2011 and these are published on the Town Council website along with the formally approved Minutes of other meetings prior to that date.

Draft minutes of the full Council of 10th Jan 2012 and the current cycle of Committee meetings will be published just prior to the next full Council meeting scheduled for 6th Mar 2012 and will be available for inspection from Wednesday 29th Feb 2012 at the Town Council office. Following formal approval on 6th March, these Minutes should be published on the Town Council website shortly after and paper-copies lodged with Bingham Library.

The main purpose of Minutes, as I understand them to be, is to provide a formal record of decisions taken, any additional text is simply to provide helpful context and explanation.

You refer to exchanges made with within the section when members of the public ask questions or make comments at full Council. I agree with you it doesn't make it entirely clear what was being discussed during a particular reply or exchange and that should be avoided in the future. Please note, this section of the meeting is not critical to understanding the formal business of the meeting as published on the Agenda.

On the matter of the Community Centre project, if you re-read the motion passed at full Council on 8th November 2011, it does not reject any possible site south of the railway line, it simply confirms, in principle, that any new site identified north of the railway should not be dismissed.

At the time I wrote the only minutes on the site for the full council (for the second half of the year) were for July and November. Are you saying that these were the only two meetings?

The minutes, surely, should enable those residents who are unable to attend the meeting to understand what is going on. We must have a right to know? In this regard I remain confused about the Council's position with regard to the community centre. I have to disagree and say that the minutes seem, to me anyway, to suggest that the Council is favouring a centre to the North of the town, as part of any new development. I think the rejection of the amendment proposed by Councillor's Davidson and Hull adds weight to this view. Is this the case or not? Put another way is a centre in the existing town still being pursued? What if, for instance the new development was notto go ahead?

With regard to the two specific points arising out of any other business or whatever the public question time is called I am really interested in understanding why the election leaflet was brought up so long after the event and what the issue was? Perhaps you could let the people of Bingham know through this excellent site.

Equally it seems strange that Councillor Barham did not refer to the motion put forwards only minutes beforehand and tell the questioner of the plan to try and build the development of a community center into the plans for the North of the town. This was, or should have been, very much in front of "the scenes ".

While grateful for the earlier reply the absence of additional clarification seems to support the implication that the Town Council do not want ordinary people to know what is going on. I would still like to have written confirmation of the Council's official position with regard to the location of a Community Centre and would like to understand why the Davidson/Hull amendment was rejected?
I would also simply like to know what was the issue raised about the election leaflet and what was the council's response - am I asking too much? Perhaps the person who raised the issue might read this or one of the other councillors. Mr Purdue-Horan seems to be the only one who actively monitors this useful forum - for which again i thank him.