Telegraph 14/10/2006
It has taken more than 12 months and cost about £10,000 but a council is finally on the verge of discovering the identity of a man who kept saying "baa" during a planning meeting. After a wide-ranging investigation, Havering council, based in Romford, Essex, has prepared a 300-page report, according to the Romford Recorder newspaper. Unfortunately, the downside is that the prime suspect is no longer a councillor and is, therefore, beyond the scope of any punishment that it might want to mete out.
The incident has it roots in a planning meeting in September last year when an application was being heard to put a mobile home on a farm housing rare breeds of horses and sheep. The solemnity of the debate was, apparently, interrupted by a male councillor making unhelpful "baa-ing" noises. This so enraged Coun Jeff Tucker, who represents the area where the farm is, that he reported the incident to the Standards Board for England which, in turn, referred it back to Havering council for investigation. Now, after a probe estimated to have cost £10,000 in staff time, the list of suspects has been narrowed down to four, who will be quizzed by the standards hearings sub-committee in November. One of the suspects, Denis O'Flynn, a former Labour councillor and deputy mayor, said: "This has been an extremely expensive example of the worst kind of council bureaucracy. The fact that this investigation has cost so much time and money is the height of stupidity." A council spokesman denied that the report extended to 300 pages, though he admitted that it was "substantial".
No comments:
Post a Comment