TURBULENT TIMES AT STC – CIC AND WAVE OF RESIGNATIONS

STC was supposedly not going to hold any meetings “in the near future”, yet this week alone saw three of them take place. Add to that the resignation of several councillors in the span of just two weeks. The Mayor is gone. The Vice Leader of the Council is gone.

Out of 16 Labour councillors elected at the last elections, only 5(allegedly) remain Labour councillors — the rest have resigned or left the party. The Town Clerk is never at the Town Hall, and the delay in documentation is already six months. The highest-ranking civil servant in STC right now? The Town Clerk’s… brother?

TURBULENT – SUCH A FUNNY WORD
Is my use of the word “turbulent” too playful? Or fully justified? Am I overreacting? Doesn’t really matter, because today I won’t write about councillors or the complete chaos in which STC is slowly sinking. Today, I want to focus on the Council’s attempt to lease out the STC Village Hall. There was a meeting about it — and I was lucky enough to be there.

IT’S NEWS TO ME
Like me, many residents were caught off guard by the news that STC is attempting to lease out the Village Hall. There was no public offer to rent or lease the venue, no community consultations, no official announcement or information from CIC for residents. Nothing. None. Nada. Out of the blue, STC chose to anoint an organisation with its blessing — skipping every existing procedure in the process. And you, dear resident, are expected to applaud it, not ask questions about the background of those involved or request to see any documents… just pay your taxes and move along.

GOING OFF ON A TANGENT
Until the now-infamous meeting at the Tangent building, no one outside the STC had a clue what was going on. I wasn’t allowed to enter the room that day. To this day, I have no idea who paid for that extravaganza. As you can expect, that meeting ended in scandal. And my utter confusion.

The lease agreement wasn’t signed at the open-door meeting. Allegedly, it was signed earlier? Or supposed to be signed at the Tangent meeting? Some councillors claim it had already been approved earlier (at the June meeting?) and the Tangent session was just meant to… I don’t know. Rubber-stamp it? Present the finance documents after the deal was already signed? Before this meeting, there were voices claiming that all was already agreed. But there is also another point of view.

For example, Cllr Shaun Cheeseman said he was never shown any financial forecasts, plans, or documents. So how was he supposed to agree to something he knew absolutely nothing about — apart from the fact that someone wanted to take over the Village Hall? To be honest, that version sounds the most believable to me.

His view was firmly supported by Cllr Dale Smith, Cllr Martin Barber, and Cllr Tony Burns, but opposed by a few other councillors. From what I (don’t) understand, there was some kind of vote — but it was only to allow continued discussions about the potential takeover by the CIC, not to rubber-stamp the whole thing. Let me look into the minutes to check what’s what. Oh, wait…

MINUTES? WHAT MINUTES?
It’s the third decade of the twenty-first century. Members of the public record meetings and make transcripts of them. STC? Can’t even publish a single PDF of the minutes. I’d love to quote a sentence from STC’s official minutes to back up my words… but as of today, the Town Clerk still hasn’t updated that part of the council website. Below is the list of STC meetings for 2025:

And as a resident who actively follows local matters, at the time of writing, I have access to a grand total of… four (!) sets of minutes from 2025 meetings. IT’S SEPTEMBER! Tadaaaa!

CIC? NOT IN THE MINUTES, BUT ALREADY IN VILLAGE HALL
None of the available minutes mentions the CIC — the very same CIC that has already registered at Companies House at the Village Hall address. Allegedly, nothing is signed, and yet they’re in. How is that even possible? It’s like moving into a house before signing the tenancy agreement.

Oh — and one more thing. There was a long discussion about the missing minutes from recent meetings. Eventually, the Assistant left the Chamber and returned a few minutes later with a printed stack of minutes (the Town Clerk herself was absent in body… but present on the hard drive?). So if they have it accepted, on the disk drive, why isn’t it on the website?

Anyway, Cllr Dale Smith glanced at the papers and said that not a single sentence of what he had said about the CIC made it into the minutes. None of his comments or concerns were recorded. Not one.

STC: PROCEDURES? WHAT’S THAT?
At this point, the word “dysfunctional” feels like a wild understatement. I have no idea what the Town Clerk and her brother are actually doing — or why they’ve hired an additional Assistant and still can’t manage the most basic duties such as publishing the accepted minutes. How many more people do they need to copy and paste the minutes and click “publish” on the website? Five? Ten? The whole family? No clue.

COMMUNITY INTEREST MEANS… SECRET INTEREST
This community interest company was wrapped in so much secrecy that every meeting about it was marked “exempt” — the “community” was kicked out of the room so discussions could take place behind closed doors. What part of that don’t you understand?

Back when I was on STC, I openly protested against this kind of practice. STC isn’t MI6 — the only things that should be confidential are names of individuals, not facts, actions, decisions, or figures. The law on this is clear: councils must vote on what is kept exempt, and councillors are expected to disclose as much as possible.

We, as a community, have the right to know everything — except in a few specific cases like bidding processes or personnel matters. Instead, STC tries to slap the “exempt” label on anything and everything, making sure nothing is ever fully clear until it’s already too late to change anything.

EXEMPT CULTURE IS A THING OF THE PAST REGIME
Luckily, STC, in its current makeup, includes councillors who share my perspective on the abuse of the “exempt” clause. In this particular case, Cllr Tony Burns tabled a motion to remove the exempt status from a meeting item that had been pre-labelled “exempt” by someone behind the scenes. The motion… passed. You might think — victory! The community will finally learn more about this community interest company’s plans.

But you’ve forgotten: this is STC we’re talking about. The moment the “eternal secrecy crew” lost the vote, the Leader of STC shut the meeting down and declared that no discussion on CIC finances would take place. So… I went for a quick shop at Lidl. As a reward for my beautifully wasted evening (editor’s note added 16 hours after publication: one reader messaged me to point out that the meeting was actually quite successful, and I agree — I wrote that sentence as a joke, not a description), I bought myself a jar of hazelnut butter. It was on special offer.

HONOURABLE MENTION
I’ll end this article on a positive note. When I was a member of STC, it often felt like I was standing alone against a machine that’s been consuming this town for decades. But today, I saw something different — a whole group within STC that, like me, stands against shady deals, rule-bending actions, and unclear procedures that only ever seem to benefit one side.

FOLLOW THE PROCEDURE
At times, I genuinely felt like jumping up, running over to those councillors and giving them a proper heartfelt hug. But, you know… you can’t just run up and hug councillors in the middle of a meeting. So instead, I’m sending virtual hugs to (alphabetical order):

Cllr Martin Barber, Cllr Tony Burns, Cllr Shaun Cheeseman, and Cllr Dale Smith.

Today, they have won a key battle. A battle for… following the procedure. It may sound bland. Bureaucratic. Unimportant. But in Shirebrook’s case — it’s the battle that must be won if we want to live in a transparent and prosperous town.

Sylwester Zwierzynski info@shirebrook247.com