A POLITICAL row has exploded after Barnsley’s only Liberal Democrat councillor claimed she was ‘bullied and humiliated’ at a council meeting.
Coun Hannah Kitching, who was elected to represent the Penistone West ward in May, had been put forward for a role on the planning board. However, she claims she was not consulted and only found out about the nomination when she was handed the agenda for the full council meeting, at Barnsley Town Hall last Thursday. Coun Sharon Howard told members of Coun Kitching’s proposed appointment although jeers rang out when she informed colleagues that she would be declining the appointment.
Having already taken a role on the appeals, awards and standards regulatory board, Coun Kitching told the Chronicle she is now weighing up whether or not to issue a formal complaint into councillors’ conduct.
“What happened was tantamount to bullying and I haven’t ruled out issuing a complaint as it was intimidating,” Coun Kitching said. “If it happens again it will be harassment I explained to Coun Howard via email that I was not in a position to take the role on the planning board but those seem to have been ignored.
“The nomination occurred without my consent and without consultation with me. I am a single-member group, I have no colleagues either in my ward or on the council, no admin support or research support. I live in and represent a geographically large and distant ward. I have made significant commitments to those people and although I have taken up roles on other boards, I would compromise my promise to residents by taking up the planning board post something I’m not willing to do.
“It’s a contentious area for planning-related matters and by being on the board, I’d effectively be gagged from representing residents. Before, Labour councillors have taken on the role without protest but I am not a nodding dog. The way they went about it is all wrong and it’s something I have a real problem with as it’s purely down to which political party I represent. I’m five foot two inches and eight stones wet having big, burly, middle-aged men confront you in a council chamber is very intimidating.”
Coun Kitching said she found the process ‘humiliating’ but insisted the principle of councillors rejecting appointments to committees or boards was not unusual, citing a Lib Dem colleague at Rotherham who had done the same without repercussions.
However, her decision provoked a reaction from both Conservative and Labour colleagues on the council, with Conservative Coun Paul Hand-Davis telling the meeting Coun Kitching had support from the other five councillors representing Penistone regardless of party.
Council leader Sir Steve Houghton added: “This is the first time on my council this instance has occurred and it is not something we wish to do.
“The reason we have been successful is because we do things properly. Just hold onto that principle, because for me it really does matter.
“Appointments do not require individual consent. What I don’t accept is that people can opt out from the duties for which they were elected.
“When you are elected a councillor, you are not elected as a councillor for your ward but as a councillor for the borough as a whole.
“If members decide they don’t want to do it, that is just a burden on other members.”
