In scenes reminiscent of the recent Handforth Parish Council meeting which made global news, Councillor Phil Pritchard was ejected from Welshpool Town Council’s monthly meeting last night following a fiery exchange.
Cllr Pritchard had failed to acknowledge the minutes sent to him by Town Clerk, Anne Wilson, from a Services and Property Committee meeting, which he chaired, claiming that “the last word I had was that she (Ms Wilson) had been suspended”.
It prompted Town Mayor, David Senior, to quickly intervene to say that it was a “confidential matter for private session” and for Deputy Mayor, Cllr Alison Davies, to ask “can we mute Cllr Pritchard please?” when he tried to speak further on the matter.
In response, an enraged Cllr Pritchard said: “Who is Alison Davies? Who is running this show?”
Mayor Senior again intervened and instructed Ms Wilson to “remove Cllr Pritchard” and blasted: “Excuse me! enough! That was completely inappropriate, as you know.
“We will be looking at our code of conduct later in the meeting and if you read it you will understand why that was completely inappropriate.”
Cllr Prichard was allowed back into the meeting 11 minutes later but with a warning from the Mayor to watch his conduct.
“It will be necessary for Phil (Cllr Prichard) to conduct himself appropriately if he comes back in. There will be no interruption and he saves confidential matters for time when that is appropriate.”
Handforth hit the headlines last month when a video of the rowing councillors went viral.
So what sparked the outburst?
All does not seem right behind the scenes at Welshpool Town Council despite their official line of “it’s business as usual”.
Chatter started reaching us last week from reputable sources that there was some sort of an internal investigation at the Town Council following talk of staff unrest.
However, Cllr Davies, in her capacity of Deputy Mayor, said there was no such investigation ongoing and that the council was working at “100%”.
Members of the press and public were asked to log off before the end of the meeting last night, as is common at council meetings, so that some matters could be discussed among the councillors in private. We will have to wait and see if anything more develops.