At the Annual meeting of the Stonesfield Parish Council on 8 May no chair was elected.
A parish council is not legally constituted without a chairman. Someone must take on the role, or the council cannot function. This is implicit in the Local Government Act section 14(1). If no Chairman can be elected the meeting cannot continue beyond this agenda item. Although the Chair has no power to make decisions alone without the resolution of the Council, a council without a Chair is also legally unable to make any decisions. For clarity, at this moment in time council cannot adopt, sign off any policies and no resolutions can be made (this may impact our working groups who are Parish Council led – SAFER and Neighbourhood Plan).
The council will attempt to elect a Chair again in a meeting in June – date to be confirmed.
Vacancies
The council can confirm there are 2 councillor vacancies at the moment. The latest one (following Jim O’Brien resignation) has been advertised by WODC, the other vacancy has previously been advertised and has been open for some time. We encourage residents to come forward to become councillors.
In addition to the councillor vacancies there is a clerk vacancy following the resignation of the Parish Clerk, we are looking for another experienced clerk to fill this part time role. Full details and advertisement of this will be published but do reach out to the current clerk if this is something you may be interested in applying for or for an informal chat / further information.