Last night Wiltshire Councillors voted in Councillor Iain Wallis as the Chair to the Area Board for Devizes. Meaning any grants to community groups, youth organisations, sports clubs and local charities, have to go through him.
Much as I would like to offer my congratulations to councillor Wallis, I feel it is imperative to question many aspects to this with regards to community led projects, other town councillors, youth project workers and the many various other residents who he seems to neglect the opinions of by silencing them and banning them from his Facebook group, the local legendarily biassed, Devizes Issues.
Part of his new job description reads thus: “to provide a local platform for local engagement and conversation.” Will the Devizes Issues be this platform, if he doesn’t allow any opinion differing from his own? Let’s make no mistake here, opposition councillor’s election campaigns have been slandered on this Facebook group, the independent PCC and all of his supporters were barred from posting, a Devizes-based Covid support group was banned from the group, all by this councillor’s hand.
Wiltshire Council’s website explains “area boards exist to work alongside other organisations to make things happen in the community. These groups can include town and parish councils, voluntary and community groups, youth organisations, sports clubs and local charities,” groups as such which he has attempted to silence, including a residents committee set out to solve issues regarding the Crammer.
The description of what the Area Boards do continues, “An important role of the Area Boards is to provide grants to community groups. There are three main funding streams, which include community capital grants, youth grants, and older and vulnerable adult grants.” Yet we know faithful local youth worker Steve Dewar, who works tirelessly school mentoring, liasoning with Devizes Police, Wiltshire FA, RW Football School and Wiltshire YFC and has independently setup a youth pop-up cafe providing free facilities for local youth, also received the honorary ban from Mr Wallis’s “local platform for local engagement and conversation.”
You are within your rights to complain about this decision, but being he is also on the standards committee, you will most likely be better off talking to a brick wall.
Let’s go through what the Wiltshire Council website says about the overall focus of the tasks of the Area Boards:
“Develop a strong, well established and highly functioning network of local partners, organisations, and residents. Generate an in-depth understanding of our local communities, including the demographics and the issues faced by the residents. Empower and facilitate community led action. Recognise the talents, expertise, and knowledge of our communities, trusting and supporting them to co-deliver local services. Ensure decisions are taken in consultation with and close to the residents that they affect.
Effectively share data and intelligence at a local level. Provide a local platform for local engagement and conversation.
Deliver an opportunity for residents to gain an understanding of the way the council works. Finally, help deliver the Wiltshire Council business plan at a local level with the involvement of communities.”
Now, I ask you, does any of these match with the manner in which he has conducted himself on his Facebook group? Suggesting that time, he would go ahead and continue publishing town council matters regardless of if the council voted individual councillors should refrain from posting such information or not; remember that ickle controversy?!
We will continue to question the suitability of Mr Wallis in this position, given the factors expressed in the opinion piece, and I see this as justified criticism, not, as he himself has stressed on more than one occasion, as “harassing and bullying” him, for that is both not our intention, and indeed, an outright lie. In order to undergo this task effectively, as clearly stated on the website, engaging with the community would, in my opinion, mean everyone within that community and not only the ones who agree with him personally, otherwise that is most certainly not impartial to political and social sway, as proved by the governing of his social media group.
We publish this as a concerning development which seriously risks the future of community led events, organisations and schemes within the Devizes area, as any councillor who seems only focused on pushing the agenda of one national political party will endeavour to allow only those who back them too, and agree with his opinion. This we have discovered by the manner in which he controls his social media group, which would be totally his prerogative to do so, of course, if he wasn’t in such a conflicting position of power.
It does seem such a shame, that this essentially hardworking and proactive councillor cannot seem to overcome this issue of allowing an entire community to communicate freely without the threat of being silenced for simply disagreeing on a particular issue. We too face this terrible predicament, any good work we do at Devizine, whether it be charity, promotion of events, schools and community groups, they will always remain blocked and heavily criticised in order to make way for some grand pipedream of creating an “official’ council run website which basically rests under his control but steals our ideas and input, and you, the council taxpayer will fork out for. God bless us all, for we are going to need it!!
devizine.com 