A former councillor from Hendy has branded a Llanedi Community Councillor as ‘mean spirited’ and the Llanedi Community Council as ‘Scrooges’ following what he claims is their refusal to support Christmas activities in the neighbouring villages of Pontarddulais and Hendy. He also claims that one of the Llanedi councillors has publicly branded Santa’s sleigh as ‘awful’ and said that the organising committee should ‘ask for a refund’.
The sleigh in question (a Mumbles land train) was loaned to the Hendy and Pontarddulais Festival Committee when their regular sleigh failed its MOT. That story was widely publicised on news sites.
Former Councillor Steve Lloyd-Janes who claims the Llanedi councillor is being ‘mean spirited’ said that the Festival Committee had asked the council if they would support the local Pontarddulais Quiz Night to help raise funds and if they couldn’t attend could they make a donation. He said that that request was also refused.
Mr Lloyd-Janes said that he was disappointed that the Llanedi Community Council had decided not to help fund the Christmas Quiz and that they should take a leaf out of Pontarddulais Town Council’s book, who he says organise several fund raising events on top of their annual donation to events in the village, which he says are attended by families from Llanedi.
Llanedi Community Council have been in the news during the last year or so with claims of ‘financial mismanagement’ and the latest being signs erected at two local parks prohibiting ball games when the park apparently included goal posts.
In 2016 a local resident claimed that a substantial amount of money which was raised by the community for a swimming pool at Hendy was unaccounted for after it was decided to use the money for some other projects. Claims were made that a residual amount of money was left but could not be accounted for.
The same resident, Wayne Erasmus also claimed that Council Minutes had gone missing and that the precept was raised by 39% ‘illegally’. The item was he claimed not minuted and not signed off. Llanedi Community Council were told that they had to complete an audit by (Sept 30) 2015 following the discovery of a number of ‘irregularities’.
It is alleged that specific statutory breaches took place in relation to the failure of the Council to approve its annual accounts and that there was a failure to discuss the auditor’s report at a public meeting.
It is also alleged that Llanedi Community Council’s financial management was so poor, it had failed to claim VAT on expenditure for two years. Emails from the BDO suggest that a police investigation into the dealings of Llanedi Community Council was considered.
Mr Lloyd-Janes is claiming that Llanedi are taking a tribal stance when he believes that the villages of Llanedi, Hendy and Pontarddulais should help one and other as children from each of the villages attend all the events.
We asked the Llanedi Community Council for a response regarding the signs prohibiting ball games and none was forthcoming.
We asked Llanedi Community Council to respond to the comments made on the festival Committee’s Facebook page by one of their councillors and the allegations by Mr Lloyd-Janes that Llanedi Community Council were being mean spirited.
At the time of publication we had not received a response.
