Lynda Robertson wrote to The Journal, in a personal capacity, before last night's 'Extraordinary Meeting': “It was called to discuss the arrangements for selection of a Locum (Clerk) and the recruitment process for a new Town Clerk. Since the meeting was called, the Deputy Clerk has resigned and this will now be acknowledged at the meeting.

“The upcoming budget that the Town Council is to consider in February caused a considerable amount of confusion in the discussion. It was felt by some that the increase should not exceed an arbitrary percentage, which meant that the Council would not have sufficient funds to meet it’s responsibilities, especially in the light of recent withdrawals of support funds by BANES for events like the Christmas event, and especially for Youth Support. This percentage figure became an obstruction to reasonable debate, even when those in favour of setting a budget that would solve the Council’s difficulties for holding events and looking after things like the Town Park, Muga, Garden of Friendship etc, pointed out that such a budget would increase the Town Council’s portion of BANES’ Council Tax by only 33p per week for a Band D property. Even so, a minority of Councillors were not prepared to accept the explanation.

“That we are losing our Town Clerk and her Deputy is terrible but the Council, and therefore every Councillor collectively, is the employer of the Clerk and all the staff who work for the Council.

“Events which have occurred within the past months have had a detrimental effect upon the Clerk and all the staff such that we now have to cope with finding replacements, and that is going to be hard to find people of such high quality. Some of the events referred to have occurred in open meetings while others have occurred behind the scenes. All of which is very sad.

“It’s also very sad when Councillors feel the need to resign, we then have to find people to replace them. With the election coming up we hope that we will have enough new people joining the Council to top the numbers up.”

Councillor elections will take place in May. In the meantime, Midsomer Norton Town Council will discuss next steps to replace both the Town Clerk and Deputy Town Clerk.

Last night's (Monday, 23rd January) 'Extraordinary Meeting' can be found on Midsomer Norton Town Council's Youtube Channel, here.