Thame town councillor’s resign

A By-election in Thame seems likely, following the standing down of two Thame town councillors, one of whom is also a district councillor.
Husband and wife, Claire and Richard Walker, who stood under the Conservative Party unbrella at the last local elections, have said that “business and family reasons” lay behind their stepping down.
Richard and Claire have two young daughters and run the Star and Garter pub in Kingsey Road, Thame.

The Walker’s departing from Thame Town Council comes days after another councillor, Adam Backland, stepped down from the town council’s Open Spaces Working Group.

Cllr Buckland was vociferous in his opposition to the council’s choice of play equipment for the refurbishment of the Southern Road recreation ground, particularly critical of the fact that a consultation exercise revealed that the majority of older children questioned wanted a Zip wire included in the scheme, and that a majority of the younger children questioned chose a different scheme to the one selected by councillors.
(See report
of that meeting)
Other councillors said that they had to consider wider aspects of the schemes, like whether the tenders received met the specification and whether they represented good value for money.

Cllr Buckland said: “I think it is time for the older, more sceptical councillors to go and meet the young people themselves. As a member of the Youth Working Group, I was beginning to feel as though I was banging my head against a brick wall sometimes. Those of us who went and sought the views of young people would come back to the council with their ideas but nothing seem to get done.”