Your readers may remember that in October, we were asked to vote on the Neighbourhood Plan, which was finally ready for publication after much expense and effort and considerable delay. Or, since the turnout was a mere 11%, maybe they have already forgotten about it.

Of course, they may have forgotten about it and/or declined to vote on it because they were never provided with a copy to review, and still haven’t been. I was curious to know how this strange situation came about: being asked to vote on a Plan that we hadn’t seen. It turns out that public funds were provided to enable printing the Plan and distributing it to all households, and a company was selected and paid to carry out the service - but failed to do so. Your readers may well agree with me that this is a highly unsatisfactory situation.

On Wednesday 28th, I attended a meeting of Malton Town council to raise my concerns and ask for answers. I was encouraged by the opening prayers from the Revd Kate Turner, who urged the councillors to act entirely in the interests of the people of Malton & Norton. I was less encouraged, however, to see Cllr Brampton deeply engaged in a game of solitaire on his phone. Perhaps he was multi-tasking. After a couple of formal items, I was allowed 3 minutes to ask my questions.

I asked which councillors were responsible for selecting the company who failed to deliver, what advice was taken and diligence applied as to the selection, how the failure was allowed to happen, and what steps were being taken to recover the money paid to them. I’m sure your readers will think these questions were reasonable.

I also asked whether the council was certain that, under these circumstances, the mandate for the Plan was as robust as they would hope, and finally, whether and when the councillors responsible would explain and apologise to the public for their incompetence - and tender their resignation.

I was looking forward to hearing the answers to these important questions, but I was surprised and disappointed to be told that there would be no response, and the meeting moved on to other business. I decided that I was clearly wasting my time, so I left the meeting.

Perhaps the councillors responsible – I’m sure they know who they are - will find the time to answer the questions in this public forum, since they declined to do so in the council meeting. I think your readers will be interested to read what they have to say.

David Hoggard

Malton