The return of Jackie Weaver? Is Blidworth Nottinghamshire’s most heated parish council?

Blidworth Council is made up of a team of volunteers, dealing with ‘what flowers go in what pots’.

But recent meetings have beem closer to scenes out of a racuous Queen Vic, if internet celebrity and governance queen Jackie Weaver were to make a cameo.

“Ex-cuse me,” shouts the clerk, as I watch on in one recent meeting, keeping my head down in a corner of the room.

“Please! This lady wants to speak,” orders the chairman.

The heat is rising and I’m concerned it’s all about to kick off.

Blidworth Council isn’t the kind of name you’d think to associate with such drama.

But residents who attend meetings regularly tell me its no surprise.

“That was tame compared to what happens usually,” says one outside the meeting.

Back in the room – a small corner area of the local village library, which usually hosts children’s activities and reading – the tension is palpable.

There’s a discussion about a Facebook post that has caused controversy, stirring rumours that the council wants to move out of the library and into a bigger building – which some people don’t believe local money should be spent on.

“It’s completely and utterly unfounded,” says Nottinghamshire Council’s Blidworth member Richard Ward (Ref), who has attended the meeting, about the suggestion the library could close.

“I do have to request on behalf of the legal team that the resident who has posted that, please remove it – at least the bit about the library because it’s completely and utterly non-factual.”

“Well it’s not…” someone in the public gallery pipes up.

The clerk shakes her head disdainfully – and somebody watching spots it.

“Look how rude she is,” they say.

“Right, everybody,” says meeting chair Coun Tom Smith (Con).

“Absolutely rude,” says the person in the crowd.

“This lady! Why am I rude?” asks the clerk.

“Absolutely rude, smiling,” says the lady in the crowd.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” says Coun Smith with the air of a fed-up school teacher, as it threatens to boil over again, “can we not, can we not?”

“Well then tell her not to, I pay her salary.”

“No, no no, no, that’s quite ridiculous,” says Coun Smith, as the other councillors stare at their feet.

“Keep your smile to yourself,” says the lady in the crowd.

“No, no, no, no, you can’t come into this meeting and start saying… that’s ridiculous,” repeats Coun Smith.

“Speak to her!” the lady says, pointing at the clerk.

It’s all getting rather silly.

But it’s not the first time it’s happened in recent months.

In May, a meeting was abandoned before it had even started, after a disagreement between councillors and residents.

And at the start of June, a resident walked out of a meeting after a conversation with a councillor which she ended after being repeatedly interrupted.

“I’m not going to carry on this conversation with you because you’re obnoxious,” said the councillor.

“That’s rich coming from you,” retorted the resident, as another councillor winced and put his hand on his forehead.

Then the councillor involved pulled a face.

“**** off,” said the resident.

“I beg your pardon?” said the chair.

“I told her to **** off,” he repeated.

“Well, I think that’s highly inappropriate and I’ll ask you to please leave the meeting,” said the chair.

“Absolute shambles,” said the man, as he got up, and walked out.

It evokes memories of 2021’s viral clip of a parish council meeting in Handforth, near Manchester, which was being held over a Zoom video call.

It infamously descended into chaos and led to Jackie Weaver, who was in charge of the video meeting, becoming a household name.

Coun Smith, who is also a councillor on Newark & Sherwood District Council, tells the LDRS that the tone of the meetings is ‘a nonsense’.

He said: “I always say it in meetings, and granted, I say it fairly facetiously, but our budget is about 20 quid and we’re dealing with what flowers are going in what pots.

“Why are people kicking off so much?

"It’s more than that, but that’s kind of the basis of it.

“I think it’s a nonsense when people really kick off.

"It’s people that have never engaged in democracy, who don’t know the difference between all the different councils.

“You don’t need to be a political nerd like me and know what everybody does but don’t then come to a meeting and kick off when you’re not aware of facts.

"That’s what I find very frustrating.”

Parish councils are the lowest rung of governance in the UK, and are in charge of smaller assets in villages and towns such as parks, public toilets, village halls, war memorials and Christmas lights.

Residents say that the fall-out between them and the council date back years.

But the issues that have led to the regular bickering and arguments that take place now stem back to around January time, when one resident began to record the meetings.

The parish council took issue with the recording and brought in a policy which restricted it – making it so cameras are only allowed in one corner of the room and those who want to film have to let the council know by 9am on the morning of the meeting.

This goes against Government legislation on open democracy – but the parish council says it brought in the rules due to the filming being used to harass a staff member.

Residents – including Paul Orange, who has lived in the village for 20 years – say they’re just looking for openness and transparency.

He saud: “It is just all pathetic and stupid, the way they (councillors) behave.

“They are just acting childish about it all.

"Everything’s getting escalated out of proportion to what it should be.

“I can’t understand why, when residents raise genuine questions and concerns, the parish council treat it as basically going at them.”

A number of councillors have quit in the past few years because of all the internal drama.

That includes Jody Harvey, who said her resignation was because the authority is a ‘circus’.

She said: “It was embarrassing telling people in the village that I’m a councillor for our village, they are like schoolchildren in a playground.”

Now, it kicks off almost every time.

Coun Smith said: “I do go into meetings knowing that there’ll be one or two individuals that have come purely to kick off.

“I go in thinking ‘what’s it going to be today?’, which is daft.

"It’s ridiculous, I should be going into the meetings thinking ‘what project are we going to get off the ground, what issue are we going to be able to solve?’

“But instead you’re spending that time having these fallouts.

“You’ve got to be professional.

"And everyone at the table is a volunteer, we’re all giving up time.

"I miss my kid’s bedtime to go and have residents shout at me and accuse me of corruption.

"It’s ridiculous, it really is very frustrating.”