Denbighshire County Councillor

County Councillor David Gwyn Williams

Many readers will already know of my contempt for the Labour-led cabinet currently ‘running’ Denbighshire County Council. To summarise, this Cabinet was selected by Jason McLellan, the leader of the largest party democratically returned in the May 2022 elections.

He then put himself forward also as a candidate for Leader of the Council, standing against the Independent Councillor Huw Hilditch Roberts; knowing that he was highly likely to gain more votes due to political voting. The role of Leader is normally taken up by a suitable member of one of the largest losing parties, For many years this had been Independent Councillor Hugh Evans, a man who was widely respected by all parties and had helped make Denbighshire one of the most efficient and well run counties in Wales.

The repulsively arrogant Jason McLellan chose his cabinet purely on political allegiance, not on merit. He deliberately excluded several experienced and astute members of previous regimes. The consequent inexperience of many members, combined with their tunnel visioned political dogma and an obligation to toe the party line soon began to have adverse affects on the running of our once extremely efficient County Council.

The chaotic introduction of the New Waste Model last May was a typical example of gross miscalculations largely due to inexperienced cabinet members and officers. Twelve months later and I doubt that we will ever get to know the full truth of what really caused this shambolic state of affairs, nor who was to blame for costing us ratepayers over £2 million pounds of totally unplanned costs!

Crucially for Dyserth and most other towns in Denbighshire, due to weak leadership, we now have the widespread perception that some senior officers are running the county, and they are determined to close all toilets in the area, including Dyserth, to save just approximately £300k. They claim that they have no obligation to provide public conveniences.

This is quite correct. But while they may not have a legal need to do so, they surely have a moral and humanitarian duty to provide what is a basic human need for us all: and especially so for the elderly and those with medical conditions that necessitate access to toilets. Failure to provide public conveniences will have a real consequence of confining thousands of people in Denbighshire to their own homes!

What sort of society allows a top heavy regime of often poor direction and inefficient administration such as we now have in Denbighshire? One that absorbs and demands ever increasing annual contributions from ratepayers, yet denies these same residents the dignity of being able to use public conveniences?

The perception that some senior officers are running the county goes against the very ethos of democracy, and if true, seriously undermines the very foundations of the structure of governance which the public have voted for and put their trust in. At the time of writing our Independent group has called for the toilets issue to be recalled to scrutiny committee, hopefully with the outcome that they will refer this back to cabinet for reconsideration.

However if previous recommendations are anything to go by, this cabinet will ignore it and carry on dancing to the tune of their leader and his puppet masters.

I and my fellow Independents will still do our utmost to do what we feel is best for the people of Denbighshire and keep these toilets open: but we also need and ask for the full support of residents in making their feelings known loud and clear!

Please email me to voice your anger about this, also if possible contact the media, and generally help us Independent Councillors to harass and shame those responsible for this shameful policy!

Fel arfer, yr eiddoch, David.