It is indeed a farcical circus, but from my more informed position for different reasons than your article suggests.

The Conservative councillors that you quote are seasoned heavyweights who know exactly what they are doing; they have been consistently and strongly anti-town and parish council and have opposed vigorously the notion of High Wycombe having its own council. Why do they take this position? The voters of High Wycombe town unlike most rural wards tend to vote for parties other than the Conservatives, meaning any brand new town council would probably be governed and run by their opposition. To have a democratically elected town council in High Wycombe which would potentially do things which run counter to their own beliefs is unpalatable to them, hence why the Conservative-run WDC is against the creation of a Wycombe Town Council.

Cllr Clarke says that the current High Wycombe Town Committee, made up of the town members of the district council works well. The chairman of the committee is from the minority Conservative faction, and he was elected not by the committee as would be the norm in most circumstances but by the full council with the support of all the rural members, effectively meaning that he was imposed on the committee. The fact is that any project that the town committee wishes to take forward on the townspeople’s behalf has to be vetted and approved by the cabinet which is made up largely of rural members including Marlow Town Councillors!

How can it be right that members of Marlow Town Council who also happen to be district councillors have the power of veto over matters which exclusively affect only High Wycombe town? Vladimir Putin himself would be proud of this style of democracy Readers may also be wondering what has happened to the promised investigation into having a unitary council in this area, my understanding is that this has been killed off and swept under the carpet by our old friends the Conservatives.

Almost all the local Conservatives are great hard-working individuals whom I have a lot of respect for, however put them together and collectively they pursue power and the retention of power relentlessly, as some would say they do sometimes deserve to be labelled the Nasty Party. — Cllr Gary Hall (Ind), Princes Risborough Town Council, Wycombe District Council