Bridgwater Forward is not democratic

BRIDGWATER Forward claim Sedgemoor District Council is undemocratic.

They should know as Bridgwater Forward is undemocratic too.

In my opinion, the genuine local activists like Angela Tarr, who worked hard to keep the swimming pool in the town centre have been co-opted by two other groups of people.

first the Labour Party and councillor Kath Pearce have managed to graft themselves on to what was a genuine local residents' campaign.

The other element, in my opinion, is two local men, both of whom I believe are involved in legal action against the council, and are trying to cause problems for council solicitor Melanie Wellman.

Recently a co-activist Roy Franklin and I were asked to leave a Bridgwater forward meeting by one of these men who had led a whisper campaign about us.

He asked us to leave because we belonged to more than one group campaigning locally.

So do many other Forward members.

The other man spent time trying to intimidate me into not speaking at a county council planning meeting because Forward wanted to control the opposition to the agenda item.

This man, who wanted to stop me speaking doesn't even live in the town.

After I stuck to my democratic right to speak, Roy and I were asked to leave the meeting.

We insisted on a vote with people who have known us for 30 years asking us to stay.

Those who didn't know us listened to the whispers and gossip and voted for us to leave.

The vote was split seven/seven.

The unelected chairwoman cast her vote to eject us.

The swimming pool in the centre of town was important to the community.

There is no hope of it now partly due to Bridgwater Forward.

At the carefully controlled meetings it was a battle to even speak.

Quite often the chair reading us her own letters.

The agenda was highly manipulated.

Genuine suggestions to try to save the Splash didn't even get on the agenda.