I am writing in regarding the huge increase in special allowances that the leadership of the Residents Association party awarded themselves on 9th December. Your article online ( Councillors branded "foolish" for awarding themselves rise in allowances, December 18) regarding this matter has a number of errors and omissions- which could have been avoided had the Conservative Party, councillors or association, been asked to comment on this matter. We had been checking our facts before contacting you.
The fact is that eight leaders of the Residents Association Party- the group leader and seven committee chairmen- have been awarded a rise in the special allowance of between 40% and 133%. None are as low as the 30% quoted in your article. The leader of the RA Party gets a 56% increase for example. The average is over 49%. Additionally, two of the rises are backdated to May 2014, hence costing even more money.
Regular councillors got no rise and leaders of other party groups also got no rise. Thus one of the RA leadership saying members of other parties (although not referring to the Conservatives) had not turned down the rises is outrageous - not only is he personally getting a 43% rise in his special allowance but he is insulting members of other local parties with something that is actually completely unfounded, as there is no rise for them to give up.
I would also note that the one local Conservative who did get an increased allowance this year, County Councillor Tina Mountain (from county not borough of course), not only did not support the rise in allowances but actually did give the net income from this to St Martin’s School for their allotment project. I believe none of the other county councillors- mostly RA- in Epsom and Ewell gave their raises to local good causes. How many RA councillors did not support the huge rise in borough allowances? I believe none. Will any of the leadership refuse to take them or give them to local good causes?
The total cost of these increases (including the backdating) is around £9,000- to be shared between just eight people. Not so insignificant really. Also this is almost 20% of the net income to Epsom of the council tax rise for the year. So local ratepayers are having to pay an extra 2% again this year and almost 20% of this will be getting used for the eight RA party leaders’ pay rise. RA party leaders have argued with me and others in the pages of your paper that the council tax rises are inevitable and not having them would lead to massive cuts - and then the same people award themselves a 49%+ rise in their own special allowances!
Residents should contact their local councillors to express their outrage at the massive increases of allowances for the RA party leadership, the press should keep at this and Epsom should cancel these pay rises.
Jose Fiuza
Chairman
Epsom & Ewell Conservative Association
- Send your letters to: letters@epsomguardian.co.uk
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