Secret Surrey leaders’ talks challenged by Epsom councillor
3 September 2026
An Epsom and Ewell councillor has launched a sustained Freedom of Information campaign to uncover what Surrey’s council leaders have discussed and agreed behind closed doors.
Councillor Alex Coley (Independent, Ruxley) is seeking the agendas, minutes and decisions of the Surrey Leaders’ Group, a forum bringing together the leaders of Surrey County Council and the county’s 11 borough and district councils.
The Group is currently chaired by Epsom and Ewell Borough Council Leader Councillor Hannah Dalton (RA, Stoneleigh).
Cllr Coley’s efforts began in March, when he requested records covering the civic years 2022/23 to 2025/26. Establishing which authority was responsible for answering proved to be the first hurdle.
Surrey County Council said that it did not hold the information. A response sent through a WhatDoTheyKnow account bearing the name “Surrey Leaders’ Group” came from Guildford Borough Council, which also said it did not hold the records because it did not provide the Group’s secretariat.
Guildford directed Cllr Coley to Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, which eventually confirmed that it held at least some of the material.
However, Reigate and Banstead initially refused the four-year request on cost grounds. It said more than 200 documents were spread across different authorities, including records kept by a previous secretariat. Locating, retrieving and reviewing them would exceed the Freedom of Information Act limit of £450, calculated as 18 hours of staff time at £25 an hour.
Cllr Coley expressed surprise that the basic records of a body composed of senior elected representatives should be so difficult to retrieve.
He argued that the failure to maintain a readily accessible publication scheme had itself helped create the situation in which answering an FOI request was said to be too expensive.
He subsequently narrowed his request to 2024/25 and 2025/26 and asked which council held the records for the two earlier years.
After extending its response deadline to consider the public interest, Reigate and Banstead released the Group’s constitution and collections of agendas. It has, however, refused to disclose the minutes.
The Council relied upon section 36 of the Freedom of Information Act, which can protect information where disclosure would be likely to inhibit the free and frank provision of advice or exchange of views.
It said the Group provided a “safe space” in which senior councillors could test ideas, challenge assumptions and discuss politically sensitive or developing issues before proposals entered the formal decision-making processes of their respective councils.
Disclosure, it argued, could have a “chilling effect”, making participants less candid and ultimately weakening the quality of subsequent council decisions.
The Council also maintained that the Surrey Leaders’ Group is not itself a formal decision-making body. It said any binding decision would still have to be taken through the constitutional and democratic procedures of the council concerned.
Among the Group’s stated objectives is taking decisions about joint activities across Surrey. It may make representations, determine certain nominations to outside bodies, levy subscriptions upon its member councils and maintain a fund that can be used to employ consultants or commission research.
Although it cannot bind constituent councils without referring an issue back to them, the constitution states that the decision-making powers of the former Surrey Delivery Board are to be exercised by the Leaders’ Group, subject to council ratification where required.
It also provides for voting, with each council leader having one vote, although the stated aim is to reach decisions by consensus.
The agendas demonstrate that the Group has considered matters extending far beyond informal networking. Subjects have included local government reorganisation, the allocation of reorganisation costs, strategic planning, health services, policing, economic growth, staff retention and the future governance of Surrey.
One agenda expressly recorded that a “decision” was required from leaders on proposals for funding the implementation of local government reorganisation. Leaders were asked to agree the proposals and take steps to set aside money from their councils’ budgets or reserves.
Another item asked leaders to provide a “steer” on proposed voluntary financial controls associated with the restructuring.
“No transparency”
Cllr Coley has now requested an internal review of the refusal to release the minutes.
He disputes the claim that publication would provide only limited additional transparency. He says the Group does not routinely publish its agendas, minutes, decision notices or even its constitution.
He also claims that at least one Surrey chief executive has acknowledged in writing that decisions were made at the Group rather than by its constituent councils. He says the current chair Cllr Dalton has told councillors that a particular course had to be followed because it had already been agreed by Surrey Leaders.
“The Surrey Leaders Group should not be a secret forum to circumvent public scrutiny,” he wrote in his request for a review.
Cllr Coley contrasted its private proceedings with the new East and West Surrey joint committees, whose agendas, minutes and decisions have been published and whose meetings have been open to the public and available to watch online.
That distinction is particularly important during the reorganisation of Surrey’s councils. Decisions and informal agreements made now could influence the structures, finances and services inherited by the two new unitary authorities.
Cllr Coley also argued that any need for continuing secrecy should be reduced by the impending abolition of the Group’s constituent councils. He told the Epsom and Ewell Times ” Your readers might chuckle at the idea of a “deep state” in Surrey, but what else should we call these arrangements where the most far reaching decisions are made in private with no scrutiny or public record and the mere existence of the Surrey Leaders Group is shrouded in mystery?”
Reigate and Banstead Borough Council acknowledged the internal review request on 2nd September. It aims to provide its decision by 30th September.
How two became one became three – how “unitary” means “trinity”.
3 September 2026
The central promise of local government reorganisation was easy to understand. Surrey’s confusing two-tier system would be swept away. Surrey County Council and the county’s 11 borough and district councils would be replaced by streamlined unitary authorities.
One council would deliver the principal local services in each area. Duplication would be removed, accountability would become clearer and residents would know which authority was responsible.
That was the theory.
The emerging reality looks rather different. The Government is abolishing two tiers of local government, but Surrey now appears to be heading towards three separate layers or bodies: a countywide strategic authority or elected mayor, the new East Surrey Council and, within Epsom and Ewell, Charter Trustees preserving the borough’s civic and ceremonial functions.
Not all three would have equivalent powers. Charter Trustees would not run ordinary council services and a strategic authority would operate at a regional level. Nevertheless, each would be a public body with functions, office-holders, meetings, administration and potential financial consequences.
Residents might reasonably ask: how exactly is this simplification?
From two councils to one – and then back again
At present, Epsom and Ewell residents are served principally by Surrey County Council and Epsom & Ewell Borough Council.
From April 2027, both are due to disappear and be replaced locally by East Surrey Council. On paper, that reduces two councils to one.
But the reorganisation was always linked to a wider devolution agenda. A Foundation Strategic Authority covering Surrey is proposed as a possible first step towards a Mayoral Strategic Authority headed by a directly elected Surrey mayor.
The latest Government proposals would give regional mayors substantial powers, including the ability to intervene in major planning applications. Those powers could extend to developments of more than 150 homes, large commercial schemes and buildings of 30 metres or more.
Whatever view one takes of those powers, this would plainly be more than a decorative office. A Surrey mayor and strategic authority would sit above East and West Surrey councils, making decisions across the county on matters potentially including planning, transport, housing, infrastructure and economic development.
The old county council tier would therefore disappear, only for a new countywide strategic layer to emerge in a different form.
It may have different boundaries of responsibility, a different constitution and a directly elected mayor. But to residents looking up the governmental ladder, it may feel remarkably like the return of a second tier.
A new body below as well as one above
Epsom and Ewell also came close to acquiring an additional layer beneath East Surrey Council.
Epsom & Ewell Borough Council conducted a Community Governance Review into establishing two parish councils, styled as Epsom Community Council and Ewell Community Council. Parish councils are statutory local authorities with elected councillors and the power to raise their own Council Tax precept.
The proposal was rejected decisively by residents. Around 82 per cent of approximately 2,200 respondents opposed it, and the plan was abandoned.
That should have settled the question of creating another precepting body below East Surrey Council. Yet the abolition of the borough leaves a genuine question about what happens to Epsom and Ewell’s mayoralty, civic identity and ceremonial traditions.
The Borough Council’s preferred answer is Charter Trustees.
Charter Trustees are not parish councils. Their role would be much narrower, principally preserving the mayoralty and civic and ceremonial functions of the disappearing borough. They would probably be drawn from East Surrey councillors representing the Epsom and Ewell area rather than forming another separately elected council.
But they would still constitute another public body. They could seek funding from East Surrey Council during their first year and thereafter would have the power to levy a precept through Council Tax. The Borough Council’s report suggested that the average Band D charge imposed by existing Charter Trustee bodies is about £2.50 a year.
That may sound modest. The more important question is one of principle and accountability. Residents rejected two new parish councils carrying separate precepts. They may nevertheless find another precepting body created to preserve civic arrangements after the borough council is abolished.
There may be a respectable case for maintaining the mayoralty and Epsom and Ewell’s civic identity. But if residents are to pay for it, however small the initial sum, they are entitled to be consulted and told clearly what the body will cost, what it will do and how its spending will be controlled.
Three bodies where two once stood
The prospective structure can therefore be summarised simply.
Today, Epsom and Ewell has two principal councils: the borough and the county.
Tomorrow, it may have East Surrey Council in the middle, a Surrey strategic authority and mayor above it, and Charter Trustees below it.
Two bodies become three.
That does not necessarily mean three full tiers of service-delivering local government. Ministers and council leaders will no doubt insist upon that distinction. They will describe the mayoral authority as strategic and the Charter Trustees as ceremonial.
Technically, they would be right. From the resident’s perspective, however, government is not simplified merely by giving every new layer a different description.
Residents will still want to know who is responsible for a decision. They may have to distinguish between East Surrey councillors acting as members of the unitary authority and some of those same councillors acting as Charter Trustees. On major strategic issues, they may have to determine whether responsibility rests with East Surrey Council, a Surrey mayor or central government.
If the objective was clearer accountability, the emerging structure risks producing the opposite.
Powers must be matched by money and accountability
There is a legitimate argument for devolution. Decisions about Surrey’s transport, infrastructure, economy and housing may often be better made in Surrey than in Whitehall. A directly elected mayor could provide visible leadership and secure powers and funding which individual councils could not obtain alone.
But devolution must mean more than transferring obligations without sufficient money. West Surrey Shadow Authority leader Councillor Paul Follows is right to warn that local government cannot continue absorbing unfunded mandates.
Nor should devolution become a convenient name for rebuilding the hierarchy that reorganisation was supposed to dismantle.
If a Surrey mayor is necessary, ministers should explain why the strategic functions cannot be exercised jointly by the two unitary councils. If Charter Trustees are necessary, Epsom & Ewell Borough Council should explain why the civic functions cannot be preserved more simply and without another Council Tax precept.
Above all, the complete structure and its cost should be presented openly. Residents were asked to accept the disruption, expense and democratic upheaval of abolishing 12 councils on the promise of simpler and more efficient government.
They should not discover, piece by piece, that the promised single tier comes with another body above it and another below.
Local government reorganisation was sold as the removal of layers. Surrey now appears to be replacing them under new names.
That may be devolution. It may be reorganisation. It may even produce better government if it is properly designed and funded.
But nobody should call it simplification.
Tiers not shed for local government in Surrey after all….?
3 September 2026
Surrey’s shadow authority leaders have insisted that devolution in the county must be “done right” after the government proposed beefed up new planning powers for mayors.
Proposals due to be published in the coming week would see mayors across England granted the authority to override councils on certain planning applications – giving them the same powers already held by the Mayor of London.
These “call in” powers would only apply to developments of more than 150 homes, more than 15,000 square metres of commercial space, or of buildings 30 metres or taller, the BBC has reported.
It comes amid widespread change to local government in Surrey, with two new unitary councils in East and West Surrey set to take over from the county council and 11 district councils next year.
But many figures in local government are calling for additional changes that would see the county get an overarching elected mayor covering the whole of Surrey.
East Surrey Shadow Authority leader Councillor Steve Wotton told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) he supports the creation of a mayor and welcomes the prospect of additional powers handed over from Westminster.
He said: “We have a national housing crisis, public transport leaves behind rural communities and is wholly centred around London, and there is great potential in the county’s own local economies.
“More power out of Westminster and closer to Surrey, with a mayor, can help tackle these issues if done right.”
Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who assumed office last month, has made regionalism one of his core missions in government.
Mr Burnham previously unveiled proposals to give regional mayors a share of income tax revenue as part of a broader devolution drive.
The upcoming planning changes could also see mayors given the power to grant “up front” development permission, although a government spokesperson said councils will still decide most planning applications.
Under current proposals, Surrey could see a foundation strategic authority (FSA) set up from April 2027, which would allow the two new unitary councils to pool resources on certain service areas.
An FSA serves as a stepping stone towards the creation of a mayoral combined authority, which would involve the creation of a directly elected mayor of Surrey.
Councillor Wotton added: “It will be important that a future mayor works very closely with the two new councils in Surrey.
“We look forward to seeing further detail from government, so that we can help shape what is right for Surrey’s residents and businesses.”
West Surrey Shadow Authority leader Councillor Paul Follows told the LDRS he is “very keen” to see more powers devolved to the county, but that “those powers need to come with the funding to make them meaningful”.
He added: “Local government at every level cannot absorb more un-funded mandates.
“Mayors make sense in some parts of the UK but not all, and I hope that the government will be open to working with local government to develop the most appropriate plans for each area rather than a one-size-fits-all option.”
Epsom & Ewell Council refuses to explain complaints disparity
3 September 2026
Epsom and Ewell Borough Council has refused to answer detailed questions about the apparent disparity between its vigorous pursuit of a complaint made by Cllr Neil Dallen (RA Town) and its handling of complaints made against him.
Epsom and Ewell Times asked a series of specific questions concerning the Council’s decision to send a complaint against Labour councillor Chris Ames (Labour Court) to a formal hearing, the involvement of Monitoring Officer Piero Ionta, the composition and powers of the proposed Hearing Panel and the progress of complaints against Cllr Dallen.
The Council responded within 45 minutes with a single paragraph.
A Council spokesperson said:
“As a matter of principle, the Council does not comment on allegations or complaints concerning individual elected members. Any such matters are considered in accordance with the Council’s standards procedures and applicable confidentiality requirements.”
That response did not answer any of EET’s questions.
Many did not seek comment on the truth of allegations against individual councillors. They concerned the Council’s procedures, constitutional powers, management of possible conflicts and the legal basis for conducting an entire hearing in private.
The refusal leaves unanswered who referred the complaint against Cllr Ames to a hearing, whether that person had authority to do so, whether the Council’s Independent Person was consulted and why councillors involved in the original dispute have been selected to judge it.
It also leaves the Council unable or unwilling to demonstrate that complaints against Cllr Dallen are being treated with the same urgency as the complaint he made against an opposition Labour councillor.
The Dallen complaint against Ames
Cllr Dallen complained about Cllr Ames following the Strategy and Resources Committee meeting of 27 January.
Cllr Ames repeatedly questioned the secrecy surrounding an urgent decision making up to £500,000 available for work at the Rainbow Leisure Centre. The decision had been taken by officers in consultation with Cllr Dallen, who supported keeping it confidential and then chaired the meeting at which it was questioned.
Cllr Ames asked who had decided that the public interest in withholding the document outweighed the public interest in its publication.
Cllr Dallen and the Monitoring Officer repeatedly referred instead to the separate procedure for excluding the press and public if confidential information needed to be discussed during the meeting.
Cllr Ames was not asking to discuss the confidential information. His question was why the document had already been withheld and whether the required public-interest assessment had been undertaken.
The failure to identify and answer that distinction drove the confrontation.
What was really a point of order
The sequence in which the exchange deteriorated is important.
Cllr Ames first questioned Cllr Dallen’s understanding of the procedures and attempted to continue asking who had made the confidentiality decision.
Cllr Dallen then brought the discussion to an end, saying:
“It does say in the Constitution that this is the chairman’s meeting, and the Chairman has decided there’s going to be no further discussion.”
Only after that assertion did Cllr Ames call him arrogant:
“I’ve never known such an arrogant man in all my life, you’re completely out of your depth, you are completely out of your depth.”
Cllr Dallen then said:
“Councillor Ames, it is my meeting, I am Chairman of this meeting.”
Cllr Ames responded by accusing him of “more cover-up and more cover-up”.
The sequence does not excuse Cllr Ames’s descent into personal criticism. But it contradicts any simplified account in which an unprovoked insult caused the chair to assert his authority. Cllr Dallen had already described the committee as “the chairman’s meeting” and announced that questioning would cease.
Underneath the anger was an obvious procedural issue.
Cllr Dallen had participated in approving the urgent decision, supported its confidential treatment and was then chairing the committee while members questioned those actions. The appropriate issue was whether his involvement meant that he should relinquish the chair to the vice-chair for that item, allowing the questions to be considered by someone not personally connected with the decision.
Neither protagonist handled that issue properly.
Cllr Ames should have stopped, expressly raised a point of order and asked the Monitoring Officer for a ruling on whether Cllr Dallen should relinquish the chair. Instead, he personalised the dispute by attacking Cllr Dallen’s competence and character.
Cllr Dallen should have recognised that his own involvement was the subject of the questioning. Instead of characterising the committee as his meeting and using his authority to end scrutiny of his own conduct, he should have referred the point to the Monitoring Officer and invited the vice-chair to preside while it was resolved.
The Monitoring Officer should also have recognised the conflict-management question and advised on it. He did not.
The confrontation was therefore not simply a case of one councillor disrespecting a blameless chairman. It resulted from the failure of Cllr Ames, Cllr Dallen and the Council’s legal adviser to identify and deal appropriately with the procedural issue sitting in plain sight.
Only one of them is now facing a formal standards hearing.
Ames acknowledges his mistake
Cllr Ames subsequently told EET that he regretted calling Cllr Dallen arrogant. He said he should instead have raised a formal point of order challenging Cllr Dallen’s continued chairmanship of the item.
That acknowledgement goes directly to the distinction between the legitimate issue and the inappropriate way in which it was pursued.
Cllr Dallen nevertheless submitted a Code of Conduct complaint on 11 February, alleging disrespect and bullying.
Independent investigators appointed by the Council recommended that Cllr Ames be found to have breached the requirement to treat other councillors with respect.
Their report concluded that his personal criticism, allegations of a cover-up and repeated interruptions went beyond acceptable political debate.
But it also made findings which place his conduct in a more complicated context.
The investigators accepted that Cllr Ames was pursuing “a genuinely held, good faith argument” about transparency and access to information. They found that he was not engaged in a calculated or malicious attack and recognised that political speech attracts enhanced protection.
They expressly declined to decide whether his questions were legally and procedurally correct.
“It is not within the scope of this investigation to comment on any of the concerns highlighted by Councillor Ames during the meeting,” the report stated.
The investigation therefore examined how Cllr Ames challenged Cllr Dallen and the Monitoring Officer, but not whether his challenge was substantively justified.
Nor did it investigate whether Cllr Dallen’s insistence that it was the chairman’s meeting, his termination of questions about a decision in which he had participated or his failure to relinquish the chair contributed to the disorder.
The report treats respect for “the authority of the Chair” as a consideration against Cllr Ames without examining whether the authority of the chair was itself being exercised properly.
Who referred it to a hearing?
The complaint is now due to be considered by a Standards Hearing Sub-Committee on 22 September.
There is, however, a fundamental uncertainty over how it arrived there.
The Council’s scheme of delegation states:
“Determination of complaints referred by an Investigating Officer regarding alleged breaches of the councillors’ Code of Conduct shall be delegated to Hearing Panels.”
Democratic Services told Cllr Ames:
“The hearing has been convened following receipt of the Investigating Officer’s Report into the Code of Conduct complaint.”
It continued:
“In accordance with the Council’s arrangements, the determination of complaints referred by an Investigating Officer regarding alleged breaches of the Councillors’ Code of Conduct shall be delegated to a Hearing Panel.”
In this case, the Investigating Officer was the external investigator who wrote the report.
The report recommends that Cllr Ames be found in breach. It does not expressly recommend or direct that the complaint be referred to a Hearing Panel.
That distinction may be important.
The Council’s Constitution gives the Monitoring Officer broad authority over Code of Conduct matters except for decisions reserved to a Hearing Panel or another decision-making body. But the specific delegation to Hearing Panels appears to apply to complaints “referred by an Investigating Officer”.
If those words establish a mandatory gateway, the question is whether the external investigator actually made such a referral. The Monitoring Officer cannot necessarily substitute himself for the Investigating Officer or silently supply a procedural step which the Constitution assigns to someone else.
There may be an answer. The Council might argue that a report recommending a finding of breach necessarily constitutes an implied referral. It might identify a separate written decision by the external investigator which has not been included in the report supplied to Cllr Ames.
But the Council has declined to say.
EET asked who made the referral, when it was made, where it was recorded and under which constitutional power. The Council’s blanket response does not identify any decision or decision-maker.
This was not a request to prejudge the allegation. It was a request for proof that the body proposing to judge it had been properly convened.
Report arrived after hearing invitation
The procedural uncertainty is compounded by the Council’s communications with Cllr Ames.
On 7 August, Democratic Services sent an invitation to the proposed Hearing Panel. It did not identify Cllr Ames as the subject member in the body of the invitation.
When he replied that he did not know what the hearing concerned and would not attend, Democratic Services responded:
“For the avoidance of doubt, you are the subject of the Standards Hearing Sub-Committee.”
Cllr Ames says that was the first time he had been told expressly that the complaint was proceeding to a hearing.
He had not received the final investigation report. The investigator subsequently attributed this to a “communication breakdown” between himself and the Council’s legal services team.
Instead of acknowledging that failure and apologising, the Council adopted a tone which implied that Cllr Ames should already have understood the position.
Cllr Ames has asked who decided to refer the case, on whose recommendation and under what policy. No substantive answer is contained in the correspondence supplied to EET.
Monitoring Officer was involved in original dispute
The position of Monitoring Officer Piero Ionta creates a separate concern.
Mr Ionta attended the January meeting and gave advice supporting Cllr Dallen during the disputed exchange. It was the adequacy and correctness of that advice which Cllr Ames was challenging.
The Monitoring Officer also failed to identify and advise upon the underlying question of whether Cllr Dallen should relinquish the chair while his own part in the urgent decision was being questioned.
The independent investigation was subsequently commissioned on the Monitoring Officer’s behalf.
Employing an external investigator does not necessarily remove an apparent conflict if the Monitoring Officer defines the remit, supplies the evidence, receives the report, manages the procedure and controls what happens next.
The external report placed the legal and procedural correctness of the Monitoring Officer’s advice outside its scope. It then recommended a finding against the councillor who challenged that advice.
EET asked why Mr Ionta did not withdraw from managing the complaint and whether an unconnected monitoring officer from another authority had been considered. These are questions about institutional impartiality, not the merits of the complaint against Cllr Ames.
The Council declined to answer them.
A participant proposed as judge
The proposed panel consists of Cllrs John Beckett (RA Auriol), Alan Williamson (RA West Ewell) and Julian Freeman (LibDem College), with Cllr Rachel King (RA Town) named as reserve.
Cllr Beckett is scheduled to chair it.
But Cllr Beckett participated in the January exchange which the panel will be required to assess.
When Cllr Ames questioned why the Rainbow information had been withheld, Cllr Beckett defended confidentiality on the basis that private companies would not want their financial information published. Cllr Dallen immediately told him that he was right.
Cllr Beckett’s intervention is quoted in the independent investigation report.
This does not prove that he has predetermined whether Cllr Ames breached the Code. Nevertheless, appointing someone who participated in the underlying dispute to chair the subsequent disciplinary hearing creates an obvious appearance problem.
EET asked whether all panel members had confirmed that they had not predetermined the complaint and why Cllr Beckett had been selected despite his involvement.
The Council declined to answer.
Hearing behind closed doors
The Council has announced in advance that the hearing will not be webcast and that “all evidence shall be received and heard in exempt session”.
Some evidence about individual councillors may lawfully require protection. It does not follow that the whole hearing must be secret.
The incident occurred during a public meeting recorded on the Council’s webcast. The complaint, the investigation and the proposed hearing concern the conduct of elected representatives performing public duties.
The Council has not identified which statutory exemption justifies excluding the public from the entire proceeding or whether the required public-interest assessment has been undertaken.
It has also declined to identify the sanctions constitutionally available to the panel if it finds a breach.
The Council’s response invokes “applicable confidentiality requirements” without identifying what those requirements are or explaining why they prevent answers about jurisdiction, procedure and panel powers.
Complaints against Dallen
The contrast with complaints against Cllr Dallen is increasingly difficult to ignore.
Cllr Ames says that he made a complaint against Cllr Dallen arising from the same January meeting. Among other matters, it challenged Cllr Dallen’s use of the chair to prevent continued scrutiny of a decision in which he had participated.
That complaint was rejected without an equivalent external investigation.
A complaint from a member of the public against Cllr Dallen was also reportedly rejected.
Cllr Ames has also made a complaint concerning Cllr Dallen’s reported participation in a panel dealing with a complaint against the Chief Executive about the Rainbow Leisure Centre urgent decision.
His case is that Cllr Dallen’s direct involvement in approving that decision created a conflict when he subsequently helped consider a complaint about the Chief Executive’s account of it.
EET does not suggest that any complaint against Cllr Dallen must be upheld. Different complaints can properly receive different assessments and outcomes.
The issue is whether they have been examined with the same willingness to commit time and external resources as Cllr Dallen’s complaint against Cllr Ames.
The Council could have answered that concern by publishing anonymised information about receipt dates, assessment dates, reasons for decisions and outcomes. Instead, it has invoked a blanket principle of silence.
Confidentiality or avoidance?
There are legitimate reasons for protecting information about unresolved complaints. Premature disclosure can damage reputations, discourage witnesses and undermine a fair investigation.
But confidentiality should protect the integrity of a process, not conceal whether a proper process exists.
EET did not ask the Council to decide publicly whether either Cllr Ames or Cllr Dallen had breached the Code. It asked:
who exercised the power to refer the Ames complaint to a hearing;
where that referral was recorded;
whether the Independent Person was consulted;
how the Monitoring Officer’s involvement was managed;
why a participant in the original incident was selected to chair the hearing;
why the whole hearing was designated private in advance;
what powers and sanctions the panel possesses; and
how the Council ensures that complaints are prioritised consistently.
None of those questions required the Council to reveal confidential witness evidence or prejudge an allegation.
A response sent within 45 minutes which simply restates a policy of not commenting creates the impression that the Council did not attempt to distinguish questions about confidential merits from questions about public governance.
Standards or selective discipline?
The case against Cllr Ames is not fabricated. His language became personal and intemperate. An independent investigator has provided reasoned grounds for finding that it breached the Code.
But that is only one side of what happened.
Before Cllr Ames called Cllr Dallen arrogant, the chair had already declared that it was “the chairman’s meeting” and terminated further discussion of an issue involving his own earlier decision. After the insult, he intensified the same assertion with the words: “It is my meeting.”
Cllr Ames failed to convert his legitimate concern into the formal point of order it should have been. Cllr Dallen failed to recognise that the proper response was to obtain a ruling and consider relinquishing the chair to the vice-chair. The Monitoring Officer failed to guide either of them towards that procedure.
Yet only Cllr Ames’s failure has been externally investigated and sent towards a disciplinary hearing.
The legitimacy of any finding against him depends upon the legitimacy of the process used to determine it.
A Council cannot demand meticulous respect for standards from an opposition councillor while treating its own compliance with constitutional gateways, impartial adjudication and transparent decision-making as matters upon which it will say nothing.
Nor can confidentiality be allowed to make unequal treatment impossible to test.
Different complaints can properly have different outcomes. A pattern of different outcomes does not prove political bias. But where a complaint by Cllr Dallen against a Labour opposition councillor receives an external investigation and formal hearing while complaints against Cllr Dallen are rejected or apparently progress no further, the Council must provide enough procedural information to demonstrate that the difference results from evidence and established criteria rather than identity or influence.
The unanswered question is no longer merely whether Cllr Ames spoke disrespectfully to Cllr Dallen. It is whether EEBC has constructed a fair and constitutionally valid process for deciding that question, while applying the same standards to the person whose conduct and chairmanship provoked the dispute.
By refusing to answer, the Council has not protected public confidence in its standards regime. It has deepened the doubts surrounding it.
The procedural controversy at Epsom and Ewell Borough Council did not end when 11 councillors walked out of the Council Chamber on 21 July in protest at the Mayor’s ruling in favour of her father participating in a debate on the development of Council owned Hook Road arena, where his annual fireworks display is held.
Since Epsom and Ewell Times’s (EET) report, “Fireworks at Epsom Council spark walk-out”, further exchanges with Councillor Neil Dallen (RA, Town) and the Mayor, Councillor Lucie McIntyre (RA, West Ewell), have raised questions about accountability, consistency and the proper boundary between robust scrutiny and personal abuse.
An interview made a condition of answering
Before the earlier publication, EET sent Cllr Dallen straightforward written questions about his position as a director of Epsom Fireworks Display Limited, the company’s agreement to hire the Council-owned Hook Road Arena, and whether he has ever received remuneration, expenses or another financial benefit through the company. After five days Cllr Dallen did not reply before publication.
After the publication he made an interview a condition of responding: “I do not intend to answer them (the questions) in isolation but if you wish to meet and discuss the firework display, how it is organised, who benefits etc. I would be very happy to meet you either face to face or online.”
EET explained that its settled news-gathering policy is to conduct enquiries by email. This creates an exact, contemporaneous record of the questions asked and answers given and protects reporters, contributors and those being interviewed against later disagreement about what was said. This policy has been expressly approved by EET’s regulator IMPRESS. Furthermore, as volunteers we do not have the time to give and Cllr Dallen is no exception to our method. EET would welcome for publication an article about the history of the Epsom fireworks, an annual event that has been a staple of community life in the Borough since 1971.
Cllr Dallen replied: “I can see no point in responding. Perhaps you need to consider taking out insurance or getting agreement to record meetings.”
For clarity, Cllr Dallen did not decline an interview. He required one before he would answer. EET declined that condition and renewed its invitation to answer in writing. No substantive response has followed.
Cllr Dallen is under no general legal obligation to answer questions from a newspaper. His decision not to answer proves neither payment nor wrongdoing. EET nevertheless considers the questions proper and relevant to the public controversy.
In particular, the question remains unanswered:
As a director, does Cllr Dallen receive, or has he ever received, fees, expenses or any other financial benefit from Epsom Fireworks Display Limited?
Gain is not the only possible interest
At the 21st July Council meeting, Cllr Dallen declared that he was a director and trustee connected with the fireworks display, but said he did not have a pecuniary interest in the Hook Road proposal.
It is possible that he reached that conclusion in good faith because the motion sought to advance development which might ultimately bring the annual firework display to an end rather than produce a gain for him.
A pecuniary interest, however, is not confined to the prospect of making money from the decision. An existing financial interest may also be adversely affected and that would constitute a “pecuniary interest“
Moreover, EEBC’s Members’ Code of Conduct includes among disclosable pecuniary interests a contract between the Council and an incorporated body of which the councillor is a director, where goods or services are to be provided and the contract has not been fully discharged. Epsom Fireworks Display Limited had an agreement to hire Hook Road Arena for the November 2026 display.
The Code says that, where a matter “directly relates” to such an interest, the councillor must disclose it, take no part in the discussion or vote and leave the room unless granted a dispensation.
That leaves an important question of application. Did a motion merely making development of the Arena a strategic priority “directly relate” to the existing fireworks-hire contract? The motion did not itself cancel that agreement or approve a particular development. There is consequently room for legal argument.
But the existence of a company contract is relevant independently of whether Cllr Dallen receives directors’ fees. An answer about remuneration would still help establish whether his directorship also falls within the separate category of an office carried on for “profit or gain” and would allow the public to understand the full nature of his interest.
It remains a question Cllr Dallen has chosen not to answer.
The Mayor’s full statement
EET also asked Cllr McIntyre why she did not formally disclose that Cllr Dallen is her father and why she did not invite the Deputy Mayor to chair the dispute over his participation.
The Council supplied the following statement on her behalf: “I was elected Mayor this year and, as you will read in my biography on the Council website, the commitment my father, Councillor Dallen, demonstrates in helping others is one of the things that inspired me to serve my community by becoming a councillor, and now Mayor. I am perfectly able to chair a meeting in my capacity as Mayor when my father is in attendance. At the Full Council meeting on 21 July, Councillor Dallen declared that he did not have a pecuniary interest in the item concerning Hook Road Arena, which was his right.”
The original report summarised the first part and reproduced the final two sentences verbatim, these being the part directly addressing the question. The Council subsequently insisted that the entire statement should appear, saying that editing it had altered its meaning.
EET therefore publishes it above in full.
The additional passage undoubtedly supplies context. It also expressly records Cllr McIntyre’s admiration for her father and the influence he has had upon her own public life. Readers may consider that this reinforces, rather than dispels, the appearance of a conflict when she chaired rulings determining whether he could remain, speak and move the motion.
The issue is not whether a mayor can ordinarily chair a meeting attended by a parent. It is whether she should have continued to chair the particular dispute over that parent’s interests, without formally disclosing the relationship and when the Deputy Mayor was available.
Cllr McIntyre’s statement does not answer that question.
In requesting publication of the full quotation, the Council’s communications team added: “We value our working relationship with local media and always respond to enquiries in good faith, with the expectation that comments will be represented accurately.”
This was not an express threat to end cooperation with EET. In its context, however, the reference to the working relationship could be read as placing institutional weight behind the request. A constructive relationship between a council and the local press must permit fair editing, difficult questions and disagreement over what is relevant. It cannot depend upon every supplied statement being published in full.
Was there “hate” in the chamber?
At the conclusion of the Hook Road debate, Cllr Dallen said: “We, as a council, made a motion about Debate Not Hate, and I think we need to remind ourselves about that.”
EEBC unanimously adopted its Debate Not Hate motion in July 2023. It committed the Council to challenging abuse and intimidation while encouraging healthy political debate.
The campaign was never intended to make councillors immune from criticism. When the East Surrey Shadow Authority recently supported the same Local Government Association campaign, councillors emphasised that they expected their decisions to be questioned and that there was a fundamental difference between robust disagreement and personal abuse. As one councillor put it: “We should challenge each other’s policies, question decisions, and hold one another to account.” Read EET’s report.
EET has reviewed the transcript of the Hook Road exchange. It records repeated procedural objections, interruptions, an adjournment and the walk-out. Cllr Kieran Persand (Conservative Horton) called the Council “a joke”. Cllr Clive Woodbridge (RA Ewell Village) praised those opposition councillors who remained for showing a “mature side”, prompting Cllr Chris Watson (Labour Ewell Court) to defend the walk-out as a valid democratic act. Cllr Hannah Dalton (RA Stoneleigh) referred more generally to “cheap pop shots and remarks” and councillors feeling “mauled”.
Some of that language was sharp and the atmosphere was plainly heated. EET found no threat, discriminatory abuse, harassment or personal attack upon Cllr Dallen in the recorded Hook Road exchange of the kind at which Debate Not Hate is principally directed. The objections concerned whether he was entitled to participate and whether the correct procedure had been followed.
It is therefore fair to ask what Cllr Dallen intended by invoking Debate Not Hate. If it was directed at those procedural objections, it risked treating scrutiny as abuse and turning a campaign designed to protect democratic participation into a means of discouraging it.
“Debate Not Hate” cannot sensibly mean “debate, but no uncomfortable questions”. The campaign protects councillors against intimidation; it does not release them from accountability.
Cllr Dallen may maintain that he had no pecuniary interest and was entitled to participate. Cllr McIntyre may maintain that she was capable of chairing impartially. Both are entitled to state those positions.
But accountability involves more than asserting that one is right. It includes answering reasonable questions, disclosing relationships relevant to public perception and permitting established rules to be tested without characterising the challenge itself as hate.
Whether the approaches taken here demonstrate consistency—or something closer to selective accountability—is a judgment readers can now make with the exchanges before them.
One of the first orders of business for the newly formed Liberal Democrat-run, £4billion indebted West Surrey Council – will be to seek to change its name.
A motion is being put forward by Spelthorne-based councillors to rebrand West Surrey Council into the catchily named West Surrey and South Middlesex Council (WSASMC).
Proposed by Councillor Harry Boparai the motion to the Thursday, July 30, West Surrey Shadow Authority calls on the council to ask the government to rebadge the new body before it formally comes into being.
Posting to Facebook he described it as the most important motion for Spelthorne in 50 years.
He said: “Yes this is about identity that has been brushed under the carpet since 1965 which is shameful.”
His motion reads: “It is important that the name of the new unitary authority accurately reflects the history and identity of the communities it serves.
“Unlike the rest of the new authority Spelthorne lies north of the River Thames and has been historically a part of Middlesex, not Surrey, for centuries.
“Indeed, the postal address of properties in Spelthorne remains Middlesex.
“This council resolves to ask the government to rename the West Surrey Authority as West Surrey and South Middlesex as this would more accurately reflect and respect the history and identity of all the communities it serves.
“It would also remind councillors, officers, and others on a daily basis of the existence of a part of the new authority on the other side of the River Thames.”
The timing comes just two days after West Surrey Council leader Cllr Paul Follows issued his vision for the future of West Surrey. It mentions West Surrey 18 times. It never once says South Middlesex.
Cllr Follows said: “It is our collective understanding that this motion has broad opposition support.”
Had the council waited until it formally took over, in April 2027, it would require a two-thirds majority of members to change its name.
Leader of the opposition, Cllr Jane Austin criticised the decision to push forward with the name change during the summer holidays, when many residents would be away.
She said: “It is extraordinary that the Liberal Democrats’ first major signal of intent for West Surrey Council is to debate changing its name rather than tackling the enormous challenges facing the new authority.
“They are attempting to push through a significant change without consulting the nearly 700,000 residents we have been elected to serve.
“Meanwhile, the real issues – integrating six councils, managing around £4.5 billion of inherited debt and ensuring the new authority is ready for Vesting Day – remain unaddressed, and councillors are still largely in the dark about the administration’s intentions.
“I understand why many people in Spelthorne feel strongly about their Middlesex heritage, but Spelthorne is one of six council areas that will form the new authority, and its name must represent everyone.
“West Surrey does exactly what it says on the tin.
“By contrast, the proposed alternative is cumbersome and is being advanced without first seeking the consent of the residents it would represent. Rather than bringing people together, it risks creating division from day one.”
“In my view, it is outrageous that the Liberal Democrats are prioritising rebranding over building a council that is financially secure, well run and focused on delivering for residents.”
East Surrey Council has no plans to change its name.
Image: Surrey East West. (Credit: Elmbridge Borough Council) Permission for use.
Debate not hate says East Surrey shadow authority
3 September 2026
East Surrey councillors shared their experience of facing intimidation and harassment from voters as they debated a motion calling for civility in political discourse.
At a meeting of the full shadow authority, several members recalled facing extreme vitriol from members of the public and implored councillors and voters to engage respectfully.
It came as councillors debated a motion supporting the Local Government Association’s (LGA) ‘Debate Not Hate’ campaign, which aims to tackle growing abuse against local politicians.
Introducing the motion, Councillor Kirsty Hewens (Liberal Democrats: Walton South & Oatlands) said: “This motion is not about stifling or sanitising debate. We all know there is a fundamental difference between robust political disagreement and personal abuse.
“What matters is how we conduct those debates.”
She added: “As councillors, we expect to be challenged. And we should be. Residents have every right to question our decisions, disagree with us and hold us to account.”
However, she said there is a line between this and growing volumes of abuse directed towards councillors and officers from the public.
“This behaviour discourages good people from standing for public office,” Councillor Hewens said.
Other shadow authority councillors shared their own first hand accounts of receiving intimidation and harassment from voters.
Councillor Shelly Newton (Conservative: Tadworth, Walton & Kingswood) told councillors the authority’s Conservative group would support the motion, saying: “Politics is about ideas. We should challenge each other’s policies, question decisions, and hold one another to account.
“That’s what our residents expect us to do. That’s why they elected us. But there is a clear line between challenging someone’s views and attacking the person behind them.”
She added that in her two years as a councillor, she had received inappropriate messages and experienced harassment that resulted in police involvement.
“While canvassing I was grabbed, pulled into a resident’s home, and had my way blocked out by the resident who then shouted at me about national politics,” she added.
An LGA survey found that seven in 10 councillors across the country have reported experiencing abuse or intimidation in the past year.
The East Surrey motion threw the shadow council’s support behind the LGA’s campaign and called for the authority to commit to “fostering a culture where political debate is encouraged, but personal abuse, intimidation, discrimination and harassment are never tolerated”.
Councillor Andrew Matthews (Liberal Democrats: Bookham & Fetcham West) added: “As I’m sure many of us have experienced, we’ve had threats of violence. I’ve been threatened with being punched in the face. I’ve had people stalk me. I’m not alone.”
Seconding the motion, Councillor Elly Heaton (Green Party: Redhill West & Meadvale) thanked the councillors for sharing their stories, calling them a “disappointingly relatable experience”.
The LGA’s campaign also noted that more than half of councillors have reported being victims of misinformation.
The organisation’s website says: “The increasing level of abuse and intimidation aimed at local politicians is preventing elected members from representing the communities they serve, deterring individuals from standing for election and undermining local democracy.”
Image: Councillors debate the motion (Credit: East Surrey Shadow Authority)
Burnham ‘commitment’ to Surrey devolution
3 September 2026
East Surrey’s shadow council leader has welcomed Andy Burnham’s “strong commitment” to devolution as Surrey continues to take steps that could see the county get its own elected mayor.
Speaking at a meeting of the full shadow council, Councillor Steve Wotton (Liberal Democrats: Horley West, Salfords & Sidlow) congratulated the new Prime Minister and wished him “every success”.
“I plan to write to him in due course to set out our plans for East Surrey Council, and update him on the progress we’re making,” he added.
Councillor Wotton told councillors the government has confirmed its intention to bring forward a Foundation Strategic Authority (FSA) for Surrey from April 2027 – pending local consultations and ministerial approval.
This would mean that the new West Surrey and East Surrey councils could pool resources and work together on certain key strategic issues, such as transport and economic development.
“We continue to see a strong commitment from government for the devolution agenda,” Councillor Wotton said.
“Following the recent appointment of Andy Burnham as prime minister, the government has reiterated its ambition to transfer more power and responsibilities and funding away from Whitehall and into local areas.”
An FSA would also serve as a stepping stone towards the potential creation of a mayoral authority – which would create a directly elected mayor for all of Surrey.
Councillor Wotton said an FSA would give Surrey a “clear route” into that next phase of devolution, adding that failure to embrace it would “risk leaving Surrey outside the main direction of travel”.
East Surrey and West Surrey shadow authorities are currently tasked with setting up their respective councils ahead of assuming full responsibility of local government services in April 2027.
At that point, Surrey County Council and the county’s 11 district councils will all be abolished. Elections to the shadow authorities took place in May 2026.
Councillor David Lewis (Conservative: Cobham & Oxshott South) welcomed the move towards an FSA and said the shadow authority’s Conservative group supports its foundation.
“We believe that the additional devolved powers and funding that would come with a mayoral strategic authority would be beneficial for the residents of Surrey,” he said.
“Directly elected mayors have brought an additional focus to their areas, which has resulted in higher levels of economic growth.”
Councillor Jonathan Essex (Green Party: Redhill East & North Earlswood) said the authority’s Green group supported the FSA creation “in principle”, but questioned why mayoral devolution had not been fast-tracked to Surrey.
“We were told by Surrey County Council in very early 2025 we would be fast-tracked to be new unitaries in Surrey on the basis this would enable a mayoral authority to be created,” he said.
Addressing these concerns, Councillor Wotton said he is “more confident now” of the government’s commitment to Surrey’s devolution under Andy Burnham’s premiership.
“But fundamentally this is about moving us forward on a journey towards devolution”, he added. “It does not guarantee a mayor, but it the first step necessary to achieve a mayor.”
Eleven councillors walked out of Epsom and Ewell Borough Council after the Mayor ruled that her father could remain in the chamber and lead a debate on the future of land hired by a company of which he is a director.
Despite the upheaval, the Council agreed on Tuesday 21st July to give strategic priority to the potential development of sports facilities and housing at Hook Road Arena.
The decision does not approve development. It elevates the Council-owned, 14-hectare site between Chessington Road and Horton Lane to one of EEBC’s strategic priorities for its final months before abolition in April 2027.
A feasibility study will examine whether housing on part of the Arena could finance playing pitches and other sports and recreation facilities. Up to £250,000 has already been allocated from the Council’s Corporate Projects Reserve.
Consultants are expected to be appointed by the end of August, with the study intended to be completed before EEBC’s functions transfer to the new East Surrey Council on 1st April 2027.
However, the merits of the proposal were overshadowed by a bitter dispute over the participation of Councillor Neil Dallen (RA, Town), chair of the Council’s Strategy and Resources Committee.
Fireworks company hires Council land
Cllr Dallen is a director of Epsom Fireworks Display Ltd and a trustee of the associated Epsom Fireworks Display Charitable Trust.
The company contracts with EEBC to hire Hook Road Arena for its annual fireworks display. It has done so since between 2019 to 2021 after taking over from the local scouts that had organised the annual event since 1971. The company has a further agreement with the Council for the November 2026 event.
The company has just three directors. Two of those directors are two of the four trustees of the charity that distributes its income to scouting groups and other worthy charitable causes.
Development of the Arena could eventually bring the fireworks display at that location to an end.
At the beginning of the ordinary Council meeting, Cllr Dallen declared that he was a director and trustee of the fireworks organisations and that the Arena was used for the display.
He also disclosed that he had met representatives of Epsom and Ewell Football Club and the borough’s netball club concerning their proposals for the site.
Cllr Dallen told the meeting that he had never expressed a view for or against their plans and was “confident that I have an unbiased and open mind”.
When the Hook Road item was reached, he proposed that development of the Arena be made a strategic priority.
Cllr Alex Coley (Independent, Ruxley) immediately raised a point of order. He said Cllr Dallen had treated the same connection as a conflict on two previous occasions when Hook Road Arena was discussed by the Strategy and Resources Committee.
Cllr Dallen disputed Cllr Coley’s account. He said he had not left the room at the earlier meetings, although on one occasion he had not voted.
Cllr Bernie Muir (Conservative, Horton) supported Cllr Coley’s objection. She said the conflict had caused controversy at both previous meetings and asked for a ruling from the Council’s Monitoring Officer.
The legal officer advising the meeting said Cllr Dallen had declared his connection and had self-declared that it was not a pecuniary interest. The officer said that where a member decided that an interest was not pecuniary, participation was a matter for that member’s discretion.
Cllr Coley tried to point out that Companies House registered Cllr Dallen as a director of Epsom Fireworks Display Ltd and that the company had a financial relationship with the Council.
Mayor Cllr Lucie McIntyre (RA, West Ewell) repeatedly instructed him to stop speaking and sit down.
She ruled that it was for Cllr Dallen to decide whether his interest was pecuniary and said councillors who disagreed could pursue the relevant complaints procedures after the meeting.
After further objections, the Mayor adjourned proceedings. When councillors returned, she announced that Cllr Dallen had confirmed that he did not consider his interest pecuniary and would continue to participate.
Eleven councillors then walked out of the chamber.
Cllr Kieran Persand (Conservative, Horton) put on record his view that “this council is a joke”.
Cllr Chris Watson (Labour, Ewell Court) remained but later defended the absent councillors, saying their walkout was “a perfectly valid democratic process”.
Mayor was ruling on her father
It was not disclosed to the meeting or to members of the public that Mayor Cllr Lucie McIntyre is Cllr Dallen’s daughter.
It does not follow that being Cllr Dallen’s daughter automatically gave the Mayor a disclosable pecuniary interest of her own under the Localism Act. The statutory definition generally extends to a councillor and their spouse, civil partner or person with whom they live as a partner—not to an adult parent or child.
Nevertheless, Cllr McIntyre was making contested procedural rulings about whether her father could remain, speak, propose the recommendation and vote.
No suggestion is made that the family relationship necessarily disqualified her from chairing the whole meeting. However, declaring it would have enabled councillors and the public to assess openly whether the Deputy Mayor (Cllr Julie Morris Independent College) should have ruled upon this particular dispute.
EET asked the Mayor why she did not disclose that Cllr Dallen is her father or invite the Deputy Mayor to chair the objection to his participation and the item. After referring to her reference in her Council website biography to the inspiration her father gave her to be a Councillor she responded: “I am perfectly able to chair a meeting in my capacity as Mayor when my father is in attendance. At the Full Council meeting on 21 July, Councillor Dallen declared that he did not have a pecuniary interest in the item concerning Hook Road Arena, which was his right.”
EET asked the Council’s legal adviser if his legal advice took account of the live company-council contract and the statutory contracts category in the 2012 Regulations? And whether any formal dispensation was granted to Dallen to participate, and whether an external Monitoring Officer will be asked to review the matter?
A Council spokesperson responded: “At the meeting of the Full Council on 21 July, Councillor Dallen declared that he did not have a pecuniary interest in the item concerning Hook Road Arena. There are no plans to review this.”
Five sources allege history of obstruction
Cllr Dallen’s public advocacy of the Hook Road project also contrasts with accounts given privately to Epsom and Ewell Times (EET) about his earlier approach.
Three councillors belonging to Cllr Dallen’s own Residents’ Association group and two sources closely connected with Epsom and Ewell Football Club have independently told EET that he repeatedly impeded progress on proposals for the Arena.
The sources allege that proposals were pushed “from pillar to post” and from one committee or process to another, causing avoidable delay.
Cllr Dallen has also been quoted by more than one source as saying, while discussing the future of the Arena: “I want the fireworks four more years.”
The sources asked not to be named because of their continuing political or organisational relationships. EET knows their identities and considers each to be in a position to have direct knowledge of the events described.
Their accounts do not, by themselves, prove that every delay resulted from Cllr Dallen’s intervention or that any intervention was motivated by the interests of the fireworks company. Large developments involving Green Belt, restrictive covenants, sports bodies, housing and Council land inevitably pass through several stages.
Nevertheless, the consistency of the accounts raises a legitimate question about why a councillor alleged to have resisted or delayed the proposals behind the scenes emerged at Full Council as their proposer and public champion. Was he seeking to publicly erase perceptions that he had been the cause of previous delays?
Cllr Dallen told the meeting that he wanted the work concluded quickly and, ideally, before EEBC ceased to exist, although he acknowledged that this might not be possible.
EET has asked Cllr Dallen to respond to the allegations that he previously delayed the project, to confirm whether he said he wanted the fireworks to continue for four more years, and to explain what caused his apparent change of approach.
At the time of publication, Cllr Dallen had not responded.
What do the fireworks accounts reveal?
Epsom Fireworks Display Ltd’s latest micro-entity accounts show turnover of £109,324 for the year ending 30th April 2025.
Almost the entire amount—£108,890—is placed under the single expenditure heading “cost of materials”, leaving a profit of £434.
The company accounts state that it had no employees, but do not break down the £108,890. They do not separately identify the cost of fireworks, Arena hire, insurance, event services, charitable donations, directors’ remuneration or directors’ expenses.
Accounts filed by the associated charitable trust show total income of £48,623 during the same year, including a £41,250 donation from Epsom Fireworks Display Ltd.
The Charity Commission register states that the charity’s trustees receive no remuneration, payments or benefits from the charity. That does not answer the separate question of whether anyone receives payment or expenses from the limited company.
The company’s accounts neither establish that its directors were paid nor prove that they were not. The donation to the charity must form part of the £108,890 wrongly described as all being “cost of materials”.
Companies House identifies Cllr Dallen as one of four directors. It names another director, Anthony Williams FCCA (Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), as the company’s only registered person with significant control. Cllr Dallen’s directorship therefore does not, without further information, establish that he owns or controls the company. It is a company limited by guarantee with no share capital.
EET has asked Cllr Dallen whether he receives any remuneration, expenses or other financial benefit from Epsom Fireworks Display Ltd.
At the time of publication, no response had been received.
The legal question
The Localism Act 2011 prevents a councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest from participating in a discussion or vote unless a dispensation has been granted. A beach is a criminal offence.
The prescribed interests include an “employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain”, together with specified contractual, property and ownership interests.
Whether Cllr Dallen’s directorship falls within that statutory definition may therefore depend upon facts not revealed by the micro-entity accounts—including whether his office as director is carried on for profit or gain and whether he has a beneficial interest in the company.
The existence of a statutory interest is not ultimately determined by whether a councillor personally “feels” that an interest exists. Members must initially assess and declare their own position, but whether the legal test is satisfied is an objective question of fact and law.
The legislation is preventive. If a disclosable pecuniary interest exists, the prohibition applies regardless of whether the councillor supports or opposes the proposal and regardless of whether the councillor believes that he has an open mind. An ongoing contractual relationship is a disclosable interest regardless of any personal benefit.
There is a paradox in this case. Development could ultimately end the fireworks display at Hook Road Arena. Cllr Dallen was therefore advocating a process which may operate against, rather than in favour of, the future interests of the fireworks company and the charitable causes it supports..
That may be relevant when assessing his motivation and the seriousness of any alleged breach. It does not, by itself, determine whether the statutory definition of an interest was satisfied.
The Council’s wider code of conduct and the appearance of bias are separate issues from the narrower statutory offence concerning disclosable pecuniary interests.
Rainbow row preceded ordinary meeting
The ordinary Council meeting followed an extraordinary meeting convened earlier that evening to debate the governance of the emerging Local Plan.
During that earlier meeting, Cllr Chris Ames (Labour, Court) expressly referred to the controversy surrounding the Rainbow Leisure Centre.
Cllr Dallen had authorised an urgent and confidential Council decision making up to £500,000 available to address an unexpected dilapidations liability following the change of leisure-centre operator.
Cllr Ames told the extraordinary meeting that problems with the Rainbow contract had become apparent early and argued that an officer and urgent-decision process had been used to bypass democratic scrutiny.
Mayor Cllr McIntyre interrupted him twice and instructed him to return to the Local Plan motion.
Cllr Ames replied: “I really don’t think it’s for you to tell me what my speech is to be about, Madam Mayor. Absolutely not. If I think this is relevant, I will make this point. I will not be silenced.”
He said the Rainbow affair formed part of a pattern in which procedural rules had been used to prevent councillors discussing matters for which they were responsible.
Cllr Clive Woodbridge (RA, Ewell Village) subsequently described criticism of officers as “unconscionable” and said the opposition did not like the answers it received.
Sports shortage wins support
After the walkout from the later ordinary meeting, the councillors who remained overwhelmingly supported making Hook Road Arena a strategic priority.
Cllr Peter O’Donovan (RA, Ewell Court) said the borough had a severe shortage of sports pitches. He referred to 84 junior football teams and said the netball club lacked a permanent base and was forced to hire facilities which could be withdrawn at short notice.
Cllr Alison Kelly (Lib Dem, Stamford) said residents frequently raised the shortage of accessible local sports facilities. She described the feasibility study as the first step towards evaluating the available options.
Cllr Clive Woodbridge said the site had “tremendous potential” as a sporting hub but stressed that the Council was not approving the details of development.
Cllr Jan Mason (RA, Ruxley) supported further investigation but warned against simply stamping through a large scheme without careful consideration of the surrounding homes and existing open land.
Council papers acknowledge substantial obstacles. The Arena is in the Green Belt and a 1975 deed restricts its use largely to open space and recreation unless Surrey County Council consents.
Any housing would also depend upon the emerging Local Plan. Development beyond the feasibility stage would require a separate business case and further decisions, some of which would require the consent of the new East Surrey authority.
The recommendation was carried without a recorded numerical vote.
Cllr Dallen ended the debate by reminding councillors that EEBC had adopted a “debate, not hate” motion.
The Council’s decision means the future of Hook Road Arena will now advance as a formal strategic priority. Whether the dispute over Cllr Dallen’s participation also advances through the Council’s standards process—or to the police under the Localism Act—remains to be seen.
After the meeting Cllr Steven McCormick (Conservative and former prominent RA – Woodcote and Langley) said
“To put this forward now is too little, too late. This council had a prime opportunity over many years to clear the path for enhanced sports facilities at Hook Road Arena, yet proposals were repeatedly shuffled from committee to committee while time ran out.”
He added “Instead of proactive leadership when it could have made a real difference, we are left with a last-minute scramble just months before council abolition. Residents and sports clubs were forced to wait years for progress; they deserve to know why momentum was continually blocked until the eleven-hour mark.”
Why procedure matters, even in little old Epsom and Ewell
3 September 2026
Nobody seriously disputes that developing Hook Road Arena as a centre for community sport, supported where necessary by housing, deserves proper investigation.
The proposal enjoyed overwhelming support. Had almost any councillor moved it at the meeting of Epsom and Ewell Borough Council on 21st July, it would have passed comfortably and probably without drama.
Yet the debate produced an adjournment, angry exchanges and the walkout of 11 councillors—including, it appears, at least one member of the ruling Residents’ Association group.
Why?
The answer cannot lie in opposition to the proposal itself. Most, if not all, of those who walked out supported giving Hook Road Arena strategic priority. Their protest concerned the process by which the decision was being made and, more particularly, the identity of the councillor who was permitted to present himself as its principal champion.
That distinction matters.
Procedure is not an inconvenience
There is a temptation, particularly where the desired outcome appears uncontroversial, to dismiss procedural objections as political gamesmanship.
Why worry about who proposed the motion if it was going to pass anyway? Why interrupt an important debate about desperately needed sports facilities with arguments about interests, declarations and who should occupy the chair?
The answer is that procedural rules are not decorative. They exist to preserve confidence in the decisions reached under them.
Substantive rules determine what a council may decide. Procedural rules determine how it must decide it, who may participate and whether the process can command public confidence.
A good outcome reached through a questionable process does not retrospectively cure that process. Nor can councillors embrace constitutional rules when those rules assist them, only to minimise or reinterpret them when their application becomes personally inconvenient.
Rules which operate only when the powerful find them useful are not rules at all. They become instruments of discretion—and discretion exercised in one’s own cause is precisely what rules governing conflicts of interest are intended to restrain.
The interest question
Cllr Neil Dallen is a director of Epsom Fireworks Display Ltd, which contracts with EEBC to hire Hook Road Arena for its annual display. He is also a trustee of the associated charitable trust.
Development could eventually end the fireworks at the Arena. The company’s precise financial arrangements remain unclear, as do any payments or expenses received by its directors.
This does not establish that Cllr Dallen possessed a disclosable pecuniary interest within the strict definition of the Localism Act. That depends upon facts which the company’s abbreviated accounts do not reveal. Though there is undoubtedly a related current contract with the Coucil and his company – which in itself – regardless of personal gain – is disclosable and prevents the councillor participating, absent a clear dispensation, on pain of a criminal penalty.
It is also true that Cllr Dallen was supporting a proposal which may ultimately operate against the continued use of the Arena by the fireworks company. That apparent paradox may weigh significantly against any suggestion of corrupt motivation at the meeting itself.
But the law on interests is preventive. If an interest falls within the statutory definition, a councillor cannot participate merely because he believes he is acting impartially, because his preferred outcome is publicly beneficial or because he is voting against the immediate interests of the connected organisation.
The test is not whether the councillor “feels” conflicted. It is whether the relevant facts satisfy the applicable rules.
The Mayor’s position
There was a second and arguably more obvious procedural issue which received surprisingly little attention.
The Mayor, Cllr Lucie McIntyre, is Cllr Dallen’s daughter. This is an undisputed and widely known fact, almost certainly familiar to every councillor in the chamber.
Yet the relationship was not formally disclosed at the meeting.
Being Cllr Dallen’s daughter did not automatically give the Mayor a disclosable pecuniary interest. However, she was being asked to rule on whether her father could remain in the chamber, speak, move the recommendation and participate in the vote.
Her father plainly had, at the very least, a reputational interest in that ruling. His conduct, consistency and integrity were being challenged publicly.
The question was therefore not whether the Mayor was capable of chairing impartially. It was whether public confidence would have been better protected by disclosing the relationship and allowing the Deputy Mayor to rule upon that discrete controversy.
Justice must not only be done but be seen to be done. That principle applies to modest local proceedings as surely as it applies to a courtroom.
The opposition focused its objections almost entirely on Cllr Dallen. It did not press the equally apparent question of whether his daughter should continue to chair the dispute about him.
Why?
Perhaps the relationship was so universally known that councillors did not consider a formal declaration necessary. Perhaps tempers and confusion prevented the point from being articulated. Perhaps they accepted that the Mayor was relying upon legal advice and did not wish to personalise their protest further.
But the omission also invites a less comfortable question: was the walkout motivated solely by concern for constitutional principle, or partly by anger at the spectacle of Cllr Dallen receiving public credit for a project which others believe he had previously frustrated?
From obstruction to championship?
EET has received consistent accounts from three councillors within Cllr Dallen’s own Residents’ Association group and two people closely connected with Epsom and Ewell Football Club.
They allege that proposals for Hook Road Arena were repeatedly pushed “from pillar to post” and between processes, contributing to delay. Cllr Dallen has also been quoted as saying: “I want the fireworks four more years.”
These remain allegations to which Cllr Dallen is entitled to respond and since Sunday when he was asked to EET has received no comment from him.
Was the walkout driven not merely by the disputed legal interest, but by a sense of hypocrisy? Did councillors object to seeing someone whom they believed had privately impeded progress now appearing publicly as the development’s leading promoter?
If so, the protest was about political ownership and credibility as well as legal compliance.
That would explain why councillors who supported the motion nevertheless refused to remain for it. They were not rejecting Hook Road Arena. They were rejecting the presentation of Cllr Dallen as its champion.
But that interpretation also carries a warning for the protesters. If their objection was truly one of principle, they should have applied that principle consistently—including to the Mayor’s position in the chair. Selective indignation is no more attractive from the opposition than selective compliance is from the administration.
The small scale is no excuse
It would be easy to regard this as a parochial quarrel in a council which will cease to exist in eight months.
That would be a mistake.
Respect for the rule of law is built from the bottom upwards. It begins with small decisions, modest offices and local institutions. It depends upon people following rules even when the consequences are inconvenient and even when ignoring them might produce the same substantive result more quickly.
The erosion usually starts harmlessly: a procedure is treated as unnecessary because everybody supports the outcome; an interest is dismissed because the individual believes himself honest; a relationship is left undeclared because everybody already knows about it; an awkward question is silenced because it is said to be outside the scope of the debate.
Each departure can be rationalised. Together, they create a culture in which rules become optional for those exercising power.
At national and international level, the same habit has graver consequences. Selective obedience breeds cynicism; cynicism produces contempt for institutions; and contempt for institutions opens the way to disorder, violence and, ultimately, conflict.
Epsom and Ewell is not on the verge of anarchy because of a disagreement over a fireworks display. But the principle is indivisible. We cannot demand fidelity to constitutional rules in Westminster, respect for courts nationally or adherence to international law abroad while treating procedural safeguards as dispensable in our own council chamber.
Rules matter most when they are inconvenient.
Hook Road Arena deserved to be made a strategic priority. It did not need Cllr Dallen to move the recommendation, and the proposal would have passed without his participation.
The Council could therefore have avoided the entire controversy at virtually no cost. Cllr Dallen could have withdrawn; another councillor could have proposed the recommendation; the Mayor could have disclosed the family relationship and allowed her deputy to determine the procedural objections.
The same substantive decision would have been reached, but through a process carrying far greater public confidence.
That is the point of procedure. It is not there to frustrate good decisions. It is there to ensure that good decisions are reached in a way that deserves respect.
Epsom and Ewell Council votes for continuing a local Mayoralty after its abolition, for a small fee …
3 September 2026
Epsom and Ewell could retain its mayor, civic traditions and borough regalia after the borough council is abolished next year following a vote by councillors.
Epsom and Ewell Borough Council agreed on Tuesday 21 July to ask the Government to establish Charter Trustees for the borough. The new East Surrey Council will also be asked to support the proposal.
The trustees would preserve the ceremonial office of Mayor of Epsom and Ewell after East Surrey Council assumes responsibility for local services on 1 April 2027.
They would not exercise normal council powers. Their duties would be limited to maintaining the mayoralty, civic ceremonies, historic rights and property such as the borough’s regalia.
Councillor Neil Dallen (RA, Town), who proposed the recommendations, said he had been approached by scores of residents concerned about what would happen to the mayoralty.
“The number of residents that have come to me about what’s going to happen about the mayor have been quite numerous,” he said. “I won’t say they’re in the hundreds, but they’re certainly in the tens, probably closer to 100.
“I have been a mayor, and there are a number of other councillors here who have been a mayor. Once you’ve been a mayor, I think you appreciate what the residents want as a mayor, and it will be a great loss if we don’t have a mayor.”
Cllr Dallen said several members of the new East Surrey Council had indicated support, although the final decision would not rest with Epsom and Ewell.
“We’ve got to get agreement of East Surrey to do this,” he said. “But I’ve spoken to three or four East Surrey councillors, and they are all very much in favour of keeping the mayor.”
Before the main debate, Councillor Alex Coley (Independent, Ruxley) attempted to have the proposal referred to the Strategy and Resources Committee. His move was defeated.
Cllr Coley argued that the proposal had come directly to Full Council without committee scrutiny, public consultation or a detailed estimate of its eventual cost.
Charter Trustees may ask East Surrey Council to fund their activities during the first year. After that, they can raise a council tax precept. The council report said the average Band D charge among existing Charter Trustee bodies was around £2.50 a year, with examples ranging from 46p to £5.
Cllr Coley drew a comparison with the council’s recent Community Governance Review, in which 82 per cent of approximately 2,200 respondents opposed the establishment of parish councils.
“The Charter Trustee item in front of us contains powers to raise a precept – i.e. council tax,” he said. “There was no consultation on this. It does include precepting powers and would create a new instituted body, and I believe that it should go to consultation.”
He added: “We don’t know what this will cost because no work has been done on costing it. For those reasons, I’d like this to go to Strategy and Resources for a debate where questions can be answered.”
Cllr Dallen said referring the proposal to committee could cause the borough to miss a narrow legislative window.
“There are two or three reasons why I think we need to make the decision tonight,” he said. “There is the urgency of trying to get a response before March 31 because, if we don’t get a response and we’re not set up, then everything goes into East Surrey and we lose control.”
He said East Surrey would meet the first year’s cost and described even a possible £5 annual charge as “really good value for money for having a mayor in the borough”.
Councillor Alison Kelly (Lib Dem, College) supported retaining a recognisable civic institution when the borough becomes part of a much larger authority. “Epsom and Ewell, as a relatively small borough, has benefited from a strong local identity,” she said. “With the new unitary authority, there is a risk that we will lose our distinctiveness.”
She said discussions with businesses, charities and East Surrey councillors had indicated appreciation for the mayoralty. “In this case, the relatively small additional charge would be outweighed, in my opinion, by the funds the mayor’s charities have gained,” she said.
Former mayor Councillor Robert Leach (RA, Nonsuch) said his year in office had shown him that the mayoralty was particularly appreciated by residents who might otherwise receive little civic recognition. “The people who valued the mayor were often some of the most disadvantaged people,” he said, recalling presenting certificates to children with special educational needs.
“People really felt honoured. Sometimes I almost felt embarrassed. They were saying, ‘We’re greatly honoured to have His Worshipful the Mayor here,’ and I was sitting there thinking, ‘Why?’ But they do really value it.”
He acknowledged concerns about a precept but said the borough already possessed its mayoral regalia, gowns and chains, making the cost of continuing the office comparatively modest.
Councillor Peter O’Donovan (RA, Ewell Court), another former mayor, said the office involved far more than its small number of compulsory civic engagements. “You do as much as you like because it’s such a fantastic position to hold,” he said. “It’s raising money for charities and seeing people.”
He recalled one child asking his father who the mayor was. “The dad said, ‘That’s the King of Epsom.’ So I’m royalty now as well,” he joked.
Councillor Alan Williamson (RA, West Ewell) said he had changed his mind after initially concluding that the scale of local government reorganisation counted against retaining a separate Epsom and Ewell mayor. “I think it’s necessary for the community to have a focal point, a focus of civic pride and for local identity,” he said. “If we lose that, we’ll be losing something significant.”
He warned that many residents did not yet appreciate “the enormity” of the borough council’s abolition. “We’re going to be subsumed into a rather amorphous administrative unit known as East Surrey, which very few people will be able to relate to on a day-to-day level,” he said.
Councillor Rachel King (RA, Town) said Charter Trustees could also help preserve Epsom and Ewell’s formal relationship with its French twin town, Chantilly. “The structure of the French government is such that it has to be twinned between a government body in France and a government body in the UK,” she said. “This would enable twinning to happen for our existing twinning and if we were to look for further twinning in the future.”
Councillor James Lawrence (Independent, College) opposed the proposal, arguing that councillors had not learned from the rejection of parish councils. “When the public were last asked for a precepting authority, they said no,” he said. “It is a concern to me that the learning moment from our last consultation seems to be: don’t consult, just take the decision straight to Full Council.”
He said that, despite growing up in the borough, he had little awareness of the mayor before becoming a councillor. “Not once did I come across the mayor,” he said. “I think I once saw a picture of someone in funny clothes wearing a big gold chain, which is largely accurate.”
Cllr Lawrence also questioned whether a mayor chosen from among councillors could claim to represent residents in the same way as a directly elected officeholder. “The mayor is not popularly elected,” he said. “It’s not chosen by the people of this borough. It’s chosen by a bunch of politicians.”
Councillor Clive Woodbridge (RA, Ewell Village) said the council was not itself creating the trustees but ensuring that East Surrey and the Government had an opportunity to consider doing so. “There’s a narrow window of opportunity,” he said. “If we don’t pass it today, then it won’t happen. At least we give it a chance of happening.”
Cllr Coley returned to the potential demands on East Surrey’s ten councillors representing Epsom and Ewell. The regulations require at least five Charter Trustees, who would elect a mayor and deputy mayor from among themselves. “Half of all councillors will need to be Charter Trustees minimum,” he said. “We know that the unitary councillors will have an extraordinary workload. They will be doing the work of the district and of the county.”
He added that continuing costs could include civic events, hospitality, expenses and administration, not merely the preservation of existing regalia.
Council leader Hannah Dalton (RA, Stoneleigh) said consultation was not legally required because Charter Trustees would have ex-officio membership and exclusively ceremonial responsibilities. She stressed that neither Epsom and Ewell nor East Surrey could guarantee that the Government would approve the request. “The answer from the ministry may be no. The answer from East Surrey may be no,” she said. “But if we don’t do it, and we don’t do it now, we are actually going to have lost that opportunity altogether.”
The recommendations were carried. The voting figures were not announced.
Under the proposal, the Government would need to introduce a further statutory instrument, approved by both Houses of Parliament. East Surrey Council must support the application before it can proceed.
Bitter exchanges in Epsom and Ewell Council Chamber on Local Plan oversight
3 September 2026
A bid to force greater councillor oversight of Epsom and Ewell’s Local Plan was defeated after an extraordinary council meeting descended into bitter accusations of dishonesty, procedural obstruction and democratic failure.
The motion, proposed by Councillor Kieran Persand (Conservative, Horton) and seconded by Councillor Julian Freeman (Lib Dem, College), was rejected by 15 votes to 12, with three abstentions, on Tuesday 21 July.
It sought to instruct the Licensing and Planning Policy Committee (LPPC) to review additional Local Plan documents submitted to the Government-appointed Planning Inspector after the 2025 examination hearings.
It also called for consultation responses not to be sent to the Inspector without LPPC approval. By the time the extraordinary meeting was held, however, the consultation had closed, 346 responses had been submitted and a further examination hearing had taken place on 2 July.
Recognising that events had overtaken parts of his original motion, Cllr Persand attempted to substitute proposals for an independent external review of the Local Plan’s governance.
His amendment questioned whether delegated authority allowing officers to propose “changes and corrections” to the plan and its supporting documents had been used more extensively than councillors intended.
It listed eight additional documents, covering urban sites, the Green Belt, potential housing allocations, sustainability, habitats, infrastructure and transport. Cllr Persand argued that the “scale and significance” of these documents raised questions about whether they should have gone before LPPC.
The proposed review would have examined:
The use of delegated powers during the examination;
Whether LPPC had fulfilled its constitutional role;
Whether councillors received adequate opportunities to scrutinise material changes;
Whether appropriate constitutional and legal advice was available;
How governance and transparency could be improved.
A separate factual report would have listed the documents submitted, the powers relied upon and the reasons they had not been considered by LPPC beforehand. The review’s findings would have gone to the Standards and Constitution Committee, the Planning Inspector and the shadow East Surrey Council.
Cllr Persand said the purpose was “to strengthen governance, transparency and democratic accountability, not to revisit the planning merits of the Local Plan”.
Mayor rejects amendments
Mayor Councillor Lucie McIntyre (RA, West Ewell) rejected the amendment under Full Council Rule 17.5 after taking officer advice.
She ruled that it was outside the scope of the published motion and did not identify a source of funding for an external review.
“The proposed amendment has no relation to the scope of the original motion,” she said. “It would not be in order to allow your proposed amendment, which seeks to make decisions which have no bearing on the original motion and provides no source of funding for the request.”
Cllr Persand disputed the ruling. “You’ve just quoted back my amendment, not really telling me why it’s out of scope,” he said. “It is about the Local Plan, but it’s also about transparency and governance, which the original motion was about.”
The Mayor said she had made her decision and invited him to follow the issue up in writing after the meeting. Following further exchanges, she agreed to adjourn the meeting so that Cllr Persand could prepare a revised amendment.
After consulting the Chief Executive and legal advisers Cllr McIntyre rejected the second version on the same basis.
When Cllr Persand continued to challenge the decision, she warned that she would ask him to leave the meeting if he persisted. “I have made my decision,” she said. “I have given my rationale. I am not going to discuss it any further.”
Councillor Bernie Muir (Conservative, Horton) intervened after another member called out during Cllr Persand’s speech. “This is not normal,” she said. “I haven’t seen this happen at county or anywhere else, where a member of the floor has piped up in the middle of someone’s speech.”
The Mayor then warned all members against interruptions.
“Masterclass” in democratic failure
Forced to proceed with his original motion, Cllr Persand launched a fierce attack on the council’s administration and handling of the plan. “This Local Plan process has become a masterclass of how not to conduct democratic decision-making,” he said. “Time and again, councillors have been denied the opportunity to do the very jobs residents elected us to do – scrutinise.”
He accused the council of cancelling meetings, delaying discussions and relying too heavily on decisions taken under delegated authority.
“Important decisions have been taken away from the committee whose constitutional role is to review, consider and help shape the Local Plan,” he said. “Councillors have too often been told what has been decided instead of being given the opportunity to help make those decisions.”
Cllr Persand claimed LPPC chairman Councillor Peter O’Donovan (RA, Ewell Court) had previously admitted not reading what was submitted to the Inspector.
“Think about that,” he said. “The chairman of the committee responsible for planning policy doesn’t know what was submitted in the council’s name. If that does not ring alarm bells across this chamber, I genuinely do not know what will.”
He also criticised the absence of a legal officer when constitutional concerns were previously raised at LPPC.
“Members were asked to consider important constitutional issues without legal advice being available in the room,” he said. “That should be a concern to every councillor here, regardless of political party.”
Cllr Persand said residents had been encouraged to spend hours responding to consultations but increasingly believed their views had “disappeared into a black hole”.
“Whether residents supported the Local Plan or opposed it is almost beside the point,” he said. “They deserve confidence that their views have been properly considered and that decisions affecting the future of this borough are being taken openly and transparently. That confidence has been damaged.”
He argued that the affair was symptomatic of broader problems at the council, referring to recent Audit and Scrutiny Committee criticism of the procedure followed over an urgent decision concerning Rainbow Leisure Centre dilapidations.
“What we are seeing is not one isolated issue,” he said. “It points to a wider pattern where proper scrutiny is too often treated as optional, where transparency comes too late and where councillors are expected to accept decisions that have already been made rather than being given the opportunity to shape them.”
Motion “out of time”
Councillor Steve McCormick (Conservative, Woodcote and Langley Vale) agreed with the motion’s underlying concerns but acknowledged that one of its proposed instructions was no longer capable of being implemented.
“Major, highly sensitive Local Plan evidence submitted under delegated authority was sent to a Planning Inspector without prior consideration or scrutiny by the Licensing and Planning Policy Committee,” he said. “When the committee tasked with setting out our planning framework is bypassed, our elected members are sidelined and our residents are completely left in the dark.”
However, the consultation had already closed and its responses had been sent to the Inspector. “Recommendation two is simply out of time,” Cllr McCormick said. “All 346 responses have long been sent to the Inspector, and the hearing itself concluded on July 2.” He added: “We cannot rewrite the past, but we must urgently address how we restore transparency, enforce committee oversight and ensure our residents are never shut out again as we move towards the main modifications stage.”
Councillors “struggled” to participate
Councillor James Lawrence (Independent, College), elected in 2023, said he had struggled to become meaningfully involved in Local Plan decisions. “I haven’t been able to be involved in a single public committee, apart from the one committee in November 2024, which released over 1,000 new pages in seven days to read,” he said.
“That’s not a realistic way to run a committee system. We’re not resourcing our committee system properly. You cannot make considered decisions on that basis.” Cllr Lawrence said committees should be properly engaged because they provided the principal means by which backbench councillors could influence decisions. “If we just get presented with 1,000 pages and seven days to read them, you’re not going to get a meaningful decision,” he said.
Councillor Kate Chinn (Labour, Court) said the “spirit of the motion is absolutely correct”. “We need a plan for the borough,” she said. “It needs to go to Licensing and Planning Policy Committee to make those decisions in the authentic and proper way.”
Cllr Muir described three recurring problems: “Transparency, scrutiny and a fair understanding of our concerns.”
“It has been an almighty struggle to actually have any input that’s been considered,” she said. “We cannot treat members like this. When you treat members like this, you are treating our residents like this.” She said councillors in other authorities were astonished when told how the process had operated in Epsom and Ewell. “Every single member in this room should feel appalled – absolutely appalled – at how we are consistently treated,” she said.
Councillor Christine Howells (RA, Nonsuch) said the sole issue should be whether the correct process had been followed. “It is eminently clear that this process was fundamentally flawed,” she said. “Due diligence now has to take place to show transparency, accountability and regain trust in the system.”
She urged members to put “duty, honesty and integrity” above political allegiance, warning: “This vote will be judged and scrutinised by the residents.”
“Democracy is being subverted”
Councillor Chris Ames (Labour, Court) linked the Local Plan dispute to wider concerns about transparency and officer decisions. When he began referring to the Rainbow Leisure Centre dilapidations issue, the Mayor twice directed him back to the motion. The Mayor being the daughter of Cllr Neil Dallen, who Ames has criticised in connection with the alleged “cover-up” of the £500,000 dilapidations Rainbow Centre bill.
“I really don’t think it’s for you to tell me what my speech is to be about, Madam Mayor,” he replied. “If I think this is relevant, I will make this point. I will not be silenced.”
He accused the administration and senior council figures of using procedural rules to prevent legitimate debate.
“There’s a pattern here,” he said. “Procedural rules are being used all the way along to stop councillors discussing things. This is supposed to be a democratic council, and democracy is being subverted.”
Defence of officers and administration
Councillor Clive Woodbridge (RA, Ewell Village) mounted a forceful defence of council officers and rejected opposition claims that the process lacked transparency.
“One of the most disgraceful things about this whole Local Plan process is the way that the opposition criticises officers – officers who work diligently and hard on behalf of us and our residents, and they’re not in a position to fight back,” he said. He described Cllr Ames’s criticism as “unconscionable” and called on opponents to reconsider the appropriateness of their language.
Cllr Woodbridge said opposition councillors had been given time to prepare an amendment which could properly be debated but had failed to do so. “Rather than blaming us, blaming the Mayor or blaming officers for this, they only have themselves to blame,” he said.
He said an officer had given a lengthy explanation at the previous LPPC meeting and the council’s Monitoring Officer had repeatedly stated that the constitution and due process had been followed. “It’s not about transparency,” Cllr Woodbridge said. “They just don’t like the answer that they get.”
He alleged that the opponents’ real objective was to stop the plan. “What they’re dressing up as transparency and integrity is that they want to stop this Local Plan,” he said. “We know we have to deliver a Local Plan for our residents that protects the Green Belt, protects our environment and delivers the housing that our current and future generations need.”
Cllr Woodbridge nevertheless agreed that residents and councillors should be involved when the Inspector’s proposed main modifications were published.
Delegation dispute
Councillor Shanice Goldman (Conservative, Nonsuch) said she had been an LPPC member when the disputed delegated authority was approved. “In no uncertain terms, we were told that the delegated authority was going to be for the purpose of making small changes, including grammatical errors and spelling mistakes,” she said. “We were not told that material changes would be made by way of delegated authority.”
She said members had been misled about the effect of their decision, while stressing that she was not alleging bad faith. “We took a vote with the information that was given to us,” she said. “That information was misleading. It was wrong.”
Councillor Alex Coley (Independent, Ruxley) said he had raised infrastructure issues directly at the examination hearing because he felt unable to do so through the council. “I made the point that I did it in that forum because I’m not able to do it at this council, either by committee or by talking directly to officers,” he said.
Although the Inspector suggested that councillors and officers should communicate, Cllr Coley said he had received no subsequent approach from the planning policy team. “This blanket, umbrella coverage of delegated authority suggests that councillors are not allowed to take part any more in their own process,” he said.
Councillor Alison Kelly (Lib Dem, Stamford) rejected Cllr Woodbridge’s contention that critics wanted to derail the Local Plan. “What we want is a Local Plan that has fulfilled all the consultation that’s necessary,” she said. “My personal disappointment was that we couldn’t have had an extra LPPC meeting before those original documents were submitted.”
She added: “I definitely want a Local Plan because it’s in the residents’ interest to have a Local Plan.”
“Worst-run council”
Cllr Freeman, who seconded the motion, strongly criticised the handling of the meeting itself.
He said the original motion had been available for two weeks, yet councillors received procedural advice shortly before the meeting which raised doubts about what they could debate. “This should have been quite a simple, straightforward process,” he said. “Instead, it has descended into farce, with people shouting out, being accused of things and being told they can’t talk about this and they can’t talk about that.”
Drawing a comparison with the shadow East Surrey Council, where he serves as a member, he described Epsom and Ewell as “probably the worst-run council I’ve ever had experience of….. For me, there has been a complete lack of due process,” he said. “This underlines why it is a good thing, in my view, that this council will soon cease to exist.”
He added: “In the end, I think there has been a failure of adequate oversight over this whole Local Plan process.”
The Mayor subsequently said Cllr Persand’s amendment had been submitted at 6.39pm, but corrected herself after he protested, confirming it had been sent at 5.04pm. The original motion had been published two weeks earlier.
LPPC chairman rejects accusations
Cllr O’Donovan disputed Cllr Persand’s assertion that he did not know what had been submitted.
“I did not read the actual responses, but I was in full conversation with the Head of Planning Policy and Economic Development,” he said. “I knew what was being asked, what was being replied to and therefore I was in full knowledge of what was being sent.”
He stressed that delegated authority did not require him to sign off individual documents. “I have to make it clear: under the delegated authority, it is not for me to sign anything off,” he said. “But I was well aware of what was being said.”
Responding to Cllr Goldman, Cllr O’Donovan said the full wording of the delegation appeared in the committee papers available to councillors before the November 2024 meeting. “I did not mislead anything,” he said. “The full motion was there, and you could have read it.”
Cllr O’Donovan said the necessary political decisions had been made during preparation of the plan. During examination, responsibility for the process rested with the Planning Inspector, who requested additional evidence to address concerns about soundness. “That work was completed under the delegated authority granted in November 2024,” he said.
The Inspector then approved publication of the additional documents for consultation. At the 2 July hearing, she indicated that documents submitted during the examination could only be withdrawn at her direction.
“As the documents and consultation responses have been published on the examination webpage under the direction of the Inspector, both parts of the motion being considered this evening cannot be implemented,” he said.
Cllr O’Donovan said the Inspector appeared likely to find the plan sound, subject to main modifications. Those modifications would be consulted upon before Full Council decided whether to adopt them. “If we decide not to, then the plan will not be found sound, and we will be in serious trouble,” he said.
Cllr Goldman replied that she had read the papers and fully participated in the November 2024 debate.
“Members of the committee queried the scope of the delegated authority,” she said. “We were then given assurances by the chair that the scope would be limited to small changes, including grammatical errors. That’s what we were told.”
Accusations of lying
In his final reply, Cllr Persand accused Cllr O’Donovan of making two false statements and said video evidence supported his account of what the LPPC chairman had previously said. “You did say that you hadn’t read the papers,” he said. “That is on a video recording.”
He accused Cllr O’Donovan of having “passive involvement versus active involvement” as LPPC chairman and said it was inappropriate given the significance of the Local Plan. “You’re under no obligation to read a paper for us, but you are under an obligation not to mislead the committee and to lie,” he said – apparently meaning not to lie.
Cllr Persand maintained that the November 2024 delegation had been presented as covering minor amendments rather than the material changes subsequently submitted. “There is a culture in this chamber and council where scrutiny is treated as an inconvenience, where transparency is something to be managed rather than embraced,” he said.
He rejected claims that the opposition wanted to defeat the plan. “All of us want a Local Plan. All of us want a sound Local Plan,” he said. “It’s the RA who are bulldozing decisions through without proper consultation, notification or working with other councillors.”
Cllr Persand turned his fire on the Residents’ Association’s record in local government, arguing that voters had already passed judgement in the East Surrey elections, at which only two RA candidates were elected. “You will not be leaving a positive legacy,” he told the administration. “Residents made that very clear in the last local elections.”
Cllr O’Donovan immediately objected to being accused of lying. “I’ve been accused of deliberately misleading the council and lying,” he said. “I just think that is unacceptable language.”
“I’m not lying,” he added during a brief exchange across the chamber.
The Mayor ended the argument and called the vote. Twelve councillors supported the motion, 15 opposed it and three abstained.
The motion was therefore defeated, leaving the additional examination documents without the retrospective LPPC review sought by its supporters. No external governance review or factual report will be commissioned under Cllr Persand’s rejected amendment.
