Long Sutton councillor is no longer politically aligned and hits out at South Holland District Council plan to reduce committee sizes

A newly politically unaligned councillor feels that members will no longer have their say under new plans to cut the size of committees.

Long Sutton councillor David Wilkinson is now one of three members of South Holland District Council who are no longer part of a political party and is unhappy about proposed changes to how the authority conducts its business.

The district council is looking to reduce the number of seats available on a number of key committees - including planning - to achieve greater efficiency.

He said: “I think this is very sad as it no longer gives the opportunity for members to have their say.

“As I understood there is no reason for making this change either financial or from an organisational standpoint, coupled with that we only have two years left as a district there seems no point.”

The district council - which is due to be scrapped along with Lincolnshire County Council as part of Local Government Reforms (LGR) - has proposed to reduce the 15 seats on the planning committee to 11 from July.

The council’s scrutiny committees, Policy Development Panel and Policy Monitoring Panel, are also due to be reduced to 11 seats.

Coun Wilkinson is not the only councillor unhappy with the changes as it was branded as the ‘worst possible moment’ by Coun Chris Brewis due to LGR at the last full council meeting.

Concerns about reducing the size of the planning committee were raised by Coun Bryan Alcock and Coun Andrew Tennant - who feared that number of votes on applications could drop to as low as seven.

Coun Wilkinson said that he was previously aligned to South Holland Independents and has decided that he no longer wishes to be.

The other politically unaligned councillors on the district are Coun Sally Slade and Coun Sam Chauhan.