A Missed Opportunity For Seamer

Seamer Parish Council has decided to reject extensive and exciting proposals for a substantial investment in improvements to the village green and village centre in Seamer.

The proposals on offer were going to cost the Proudfoot Group over £185,000 and included maintenance for ten years.

The plans included new dry stone perimeter wall, playground equipment, planting, new footpaths giving better access to The Green for all ages and abilities, plus eleven ‘shared use’ parking places for users of The Green and shoppers to Proudfoot’s Seamer Store, established on 21st April 1948.

The Green is owned by Seamer Parish Council and is an important asset for the village for use by residents and visitors to Seamer.

In March the Proudfoot Group put forward proposals for consideration and these were well received. The parish councillors felt that they needed to know the views of parishioners before approving or rejecting the scheme and asked the company to undertake a public consultation. This exercise revealed a large majority of people in support of their plan.

In April the council felt that a wider consultation was required before it would make any decision and agreed that such an exercise be undertaken. Having delayed a decision upon the form that the consultation would take for 6 months and despite asking for more information about the proposals, the council met behind closed doors on Tuesday and decided to reject the proposals. The outcome is that a decision has been taken by a largely unelected group of people that will deny the village of a substantial investment in public facilities without giving their parishioners any chance to give their views.

The Proudfoot Group said:-

“We are very disappointed that the Parish Council has decided to reject our exciting and beneficial proposals.  Seven months ago it was the Parish Council who asked our company to undergo a public consultation on our improvement proposals, which resulted in a 70% support rate.  When we showed the Parish Council the result - taken from 153 Parishioners who turned up to a public meeting to study our proposals - the Parish Council said that this sample was not large enough and that a wider consultation would be held. 

However, over the last six months some Parish Councillors feared our proposals have gained the support of the local community and the majority of Councillors have now considered this in private, excluding the public and press from the debate, stating that because of the confidential nature of the draft terms and costs involved in our offer, they wished to exclude the public and press.

We are surprised both at their decision and the way it was taken, as all the draft terms and costings had been sent to Councillors at their request and have been made public.  If anyone wishes to study them, they can be found on www.proudfootsupermarkets.com

It must be said that the Parish Council have led us up the garden path. At first they wanted the public to be consulted in a referendum and now they have changed their mind.  They have been nit picking and continually demanding we provide more and more information, which we have done, with no regard to the cost and wasted time involved.

The Parish Council gave a sigh of relief when latterly they were asked to consider alternative proposals from the Friends of Seamer who want to take on maintenance of The Green. We believe that the group will be an asset for the village and we applaud their initiative. We are sure, had our proposals been accepted, that we would have been able to work with them for the maximum benefit of the village, We fear that the Group will not have the capital behind it to open up The Green to people of differing abilities and ages by installing high quality footpaths, disabled facilities, new safer play equipment etc. that our scheme would have provided”