Periodically, Spelthorne Council holds meetings between the political leadership and the Borough’s Residents’ Associations. If you had attended the last one, on 26 October, you will have been struck that the current political leaders of this Borough are very adept at blaming other people for problems they created themselves. Again and again, it happened. At one stage, in response to criticisms from the Associations, our Paramount Chief tried to blame the Associations themselves.

“I feel like you’re putting me on trial for decisions taken by the Council as a whole,” she complained.

Well…er…yes. The buck stops with you, Cllr Sexton. You are the Paramount Chief, after all. You make all the decisions, and your deputy agrees with your every word.

And all the while Little Chief Bateson sat nodding his head dutifully in agreement with her every word.

Cllr Sexton, of course, blames the Ministry for intervening, to stop her withdrawing our Local Plan from the Examination process completely, binning it, and starting again from scratch. At vast unbudgeted expense. (With Cllr Bateson nodding in agreement with these excuses in the background) You can read her (and his) complaints here.

Well, the Minister has replied. No doubt on legal advice, she has dismissed every excuse made by Cllr Sexton, and told her to get on with it.

You can read the Minister’s letter here. (Rachel Maclean was replaced as Housing Minister shortly after this letter. But the intervention in Spelthorne’s plan was by Michael Gove, her Secretary of State, so the letter is official rather than personal.)

You can also read what the Council has agreed needs to happen in response to the Minister’s latest letter, plus all the latest correspondence here.

So, Cllr Sexton’s sole policy – binning the Local Plan – has gone up in smoke.

You can bet you won’t read that in HER Christmas smoke signals this year…