Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the Conservative parliamentary candidate, has called for intervention in to the crisis in Berwick Town Council and has called for an increased role of a local ombudsman to step in when Town Councils reach a point where they become dysfunctional.
Berwick Town Council has been in turmoil since September last year when the Council controversially agreed to take over management of the Berwick Portas Pilot in a closed session of the Finance Committee. There appears to be two factions, in what has become an increasingly bitter and divisive dispute with the Town Clerk, Sue Finch at loggerheads with Cllr Georgina Hill, who has been pursuing a "transparency crusade".
Last month, the crisis appeared to reach a new level when the police were called to remove members of the public who refused to leave over a item deemed to be "confidential" and a committee meeting was abandoned when the Town Clerk "stormed out" of a meeting after a "war of words" with Cllr Hill who had challenged the accuracy of the minutes and deemed a decision made under delegated authority as "unlawful".
Anne-Marie Trevelyan said that "Berwick Town council is by no means the only Town Council who are experiencing these types of problems but it appears to have reached a point where it cannot function properly and that is an entirely unacceptable position. There needs to be an increased role of a local ombudsman of other mechanism in which there can be intervention by an external body to resolve the situation and restore public confidence".
Anne Marie Trevelyan who recently called for Alan Beith to assist in the same way that the MPs for Lewes and Durham have done in similar situations in town councils within their constituencies revealed that she has been in contact with Eric Pickles office at the Department of Communities and Local Government added; "the County Council have said that they have limited powers to intervene so I am continuing to have conversations with Eric Pickles team to get advice and see what can be done."