Uppingham First faces small claims court

A company with links to Uppingham Town Council is being pursued through the courts for a financial debt.

Uppingham First, a limited company, which has several board members who are also town councillors, has had a claim lodged against it in the small claims court by Paula Donaldson, who organises the town’s late night shopping Christmas event.

Earlier this summer seven councillors quit the authority, largely over its links to Uppingham First. This left only eight councillors, at least four of whom are members of Uppingham First.

Paula Donaldson said the late night shopping event, which has run in the town for the past 12 years, had previously used the bank account of Uppingham First to hold its funds, which came from a grant from the town council plus fees of stall holders.

When she set up a community interest company to run the shopping event earlier this year, Paula requested Uppingham First transfer the funds to the new bank account in order to help pay for this year’s event, but says her requests were ignored.

She said: “I wrote to Uppingham First and its board members five or six times to ask them to release the funds.

“On the minutes of their meeting they said they were withholding the funds because they did not think that all the bills had been paid. I wrote to everyone on the board, with a full set of accounts showing everything had been paid. I kept giving them the details. I gave them until the end of July to respond and said I would take the matter further. It is getting really ugly and horrible.”

At the July meeting of the town council, Mark Shaw, who is chairman of Uppingham First and also a councillor, said that the funds, which total about £1,700 would be returned to the town council.

New town clerk Adam Lowe, who has only been in post for three weeks, said the grant given originally for the late night shopping event has now been returned to the council by Uppingham First. This year for the first time in many years the town council has refused a grant to the seasonal retail event, which is run by volunteers and costs about £6,000 to put together.

Paula Donaldson says Uppingham First did not have the authority to return the funds to the council, and has therefore lodged the small claim asking for a sum of about £1,900.

Uppingham First has until the 16th of this month to respond. It could decide to settle or contest the claim.

She said: “I feel angry on behalf of Uppingham. It took a lot of work to get this money in. We only do it for the town. There is no ego.”

The local democracy reporting service attempted to contact Coun Shaw and spoke with Coun Ron Simpson, who is the executive director Of Uppingham First as well as a town councillor.

He said that due to the matter being lodged with the court he was ‘unable to comment’.

Uppingham First was set up in the late 2000s and runs the town’s bus hopper service, and a business group.

Uppingham Town Council meets as usual tomorrow night at the town hall at 7pm.