RESIDENTS attending the Christchurch council’s scrutiny and policy committee meeting held last Tuesday to hear the final report on what is locally known as “the beach hut fiasco” were surprised to hear of an unnamed councillor’s statement that local community groups were in favour of beach huts in Highcliffe.

This incorrect statement was apparently the trigger for officers to claim that councillors had said that beach huts were to be welcomed and, as a result, the whole Plum Pictures bandwagon rolled ahead.

Nothing was further from the truth.

The report in last Saturday’s Daily Echo adds to this fiasco by revealing that Highcliffe Ward councillor Vicki Hallam is the unnamed councillor.

Given this, one can only be amazed that councillor Hallam did not appear before the committee at its public hearings last year but was allowed to give evidence by email to which the public does not have access. What is her explanation?

All of this is most unsatisfactory and, together with the revelations that she also failed to pay her council tax on time, Councillor Hallam should now consider her future as a ward councillor or at the very least make an apology. Silence is not enough.

SUSAN CHITTY

MERLEY DRIVE, HIGHCLIFFE

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