Foiled fraud & other news snippets

Thame Town Hall – Image Courtesy of Mark Percy

AN attempt to forge cheques to try to steal money from Thame Town Council has come to light. Six attempts were made using the forged signatures of two town councillors who have long left the council.

Fortunately, the fraud was spotted by the bank because the signatures appeared to be photocopied and the cheque numbers were far out of sequence. 

PRIOR to considering a request for a loan from a local sports club recently, members of a town council committee were asked to leave the council chamber if they were aware of a ‘conflict of interests’ .

The perception of a possible conflict of interests among members of Thame Town Council’s Policy and Resources Committee, arose because the President of the club in question, Chinnor Rugby Club, is Simon Vickers, who is also the head of the club’s main sponsor, Rectory Homes; the town council is currently in discussions with Rectory Homes over its proposal for a housing development on Elms Field, next to Elms Park in Thame.

No Councillors left the Chamber and all took part in the agenda item to consider a loan of £300,000 to Chinnor RFC for an expansion project due to be finished in time for the 2015 World Cup. The Committee agreed to support the request in principle but proposed that other avenues of funding needed to be explored first, including money from South Oxfordshire’s Community Investment Fund (CIF), or from Section 106 Agreement money from Developers (contributions that can be sought from developers towards the costs of providing community and social infrastructure, the need for which has arisen as a result of a new development taking place).

FOLLOWING a question from Cllr Mary Stiles at a recent Thame Town Council meeting, it was confirmed at last week’s meeting (Tuesday 25/02) that the council does in fact pay ‘a living wage’ to its employees. See previous report HERE 

FOLLOWING a request for a volunteer to take over the co-ordination of Thame Tidy Day, Sue Downhill, who has recently taken the reins of Thame4Business, has stepped forward. Sue is a Co-Director of Raquets Fitness Centre, in Thame.

The date for Thame Tidy Day this year is May 11. More details to follow.