Conservative Cllr Stuart Hutchinson was one of several councillors who, at last week’s Scrutiny committee, criticised papers put forward by the Executive member for Sustainability, Cllr Luisa Hillard (Ind).
Chair of the meeting, Cllr Geoff Lumley (Lab), told members he believes sustainability is an important issue on the Island, but the administration were “at risk of trivialising it” with some of the papers being presented by Cllr Hillard.
Concern over EU-funded project
Cllr Hutchinson was commenting on a paper (embedded below) due to be heard at tonight’s Executive meeting calling on the Isle of Wight council to sign up to an EU funded project that would provide “access to knowledge, information and resources which could help the Island become more sustainable in its energy use, to the benefit of both residents and businesses”.
SmileGov decision already made?
Cllr Hutchinson told members he’d read extensively on the subject and alerted them to an article he’d found online which he assumed were in the words of Cllr Hillard.
He told OnTheWight,
“It leaves the very clear impression in the reader’s mind, as it did in mine, that Isle of Wight has already joined SmileGov, for two reasons, firstly the article is boldly headed ‘Isle of Wight, a potential for renewables, joins SmileGov project’. The SmileGov project works by clustering islands and Isle of Wight is already allocated into a cluster, as will be noted further down in the body of the article where it says ‘the Isle of Wight has recently joined the CPMR cluster’.
“They can only have had the confidence to write and publish this if they had been led to believe by Cllr Hillard that the Isle of Wight had decided to join SmileGov. They also, in their section on project achievements announced on 7th April this year, say that ‘the CPMR welcomes in it’s SmileGov cluster the Region of Reunion, French Polynesia, Alderney, Isle of Wight, and more are coming’.”
Error arisen from “SmileGov’s enthusiasm”
OnTheWight got in touch with Cllr Hillard to find out more. She told us,
“If I had been able to attend Scrutiny I could have easily cleared up this misunderstanding, but I was on a remote island in Denmark looking at community-owned energy projects and forming very useful relationships with representatives from other European islands.
“I assume that this error has arisen from SmileGov’s enthusiasm to recruit the Isle of Wight as members of their project, as they are aware that it requires a decision of the Executive to agree to the Council’s participation in the project.”
Council expressed an interest following workshop
Cllr Hillard went on explain the Council had hosted a workshop presented by representatives and members of SmileGov earlier in the year, which as a result, the Council expressed an interest in participating.
In preparation for the workshop Cllr Hillard was asked by the SmileGov organisers to provide them with some further information about the Island’s sustainability initiatives to inform an article about the Isle of Wight in a newsletter for the Commission for Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR) and for the benefit of SmileGov members who would be attending.
Cllr Hillard said,
“This information was provided in the form a completed questionnaire and a profile of my role and a photo as they were interested in my role as the Executive Member for Sustainability. The article, which I was never asked to approve, was published on the CPMR website on 17 June 2014 and is the same as now appears on the SmileGov website.
“I can confirm that it contains information from the questionnaire and my profile but the line, “The Isle of has recently joined the CPMR led cluster in the SmileGov project…” is entirely the product of the author of the article and not a statement that I have ever said or written.”
You can hear members discussing the paper tonight as OnTheWight reports live from the meeting.
Image: pagedooley under CC BY 2.0
