Croxley Green Parish Council could ban trouble makers (From Watford Observer)

Croxley Green Parish Council could ban trouble makers

2:07pm Monday 30th November 2009

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Members of the public could be banned form the offices of a parish council after a raft of restrictions were agreed to clamp down on “habitual and vexatious complainants".

Croxley Green Parish Council has now agreed a policy allowing it to restrict communication with certain individuals and, if necessary, ban them from its Community Way offices.

The policy, voted through at a meeting on Thursday night, concerns the alleged continued misuse of the council’s freedom of information and public complaints procedures.

It will allow the council’s clerk and chairman to restrict contact with “unreasonable”, “abusive” and “aggressive” complainants who seek to prolong “trivial complaints” for as long as possible.

Councillor Cliff Vassiliou spoke against the proposals. He warned: “What we are talking about here is taking away somebody’s democratic rights because we are angry with them.

“We can’t exclude members of the public because we don’t want to give and answer to them.”

Councillor Phil Brading, however, agreed with the policy, even suggesting it was “rather weak".

He added: “We need to distinguish, as councillors, what we are prepared to put up with and what members of staff are prepared to put up with.”

Council chairman Marion Birch said some of the correspondence received by council staff amounted to “harassment and bullying".

The Freedom of Information Act compels various public organisations and local authorities to grant requests for information from the public and press. It is against the law to refuse such requests unless a complainant is classed as a habitual or vexatious complainant under some of the following criteria:

• The submission of serial complaints and grievances about a range of different matters
• Complaints and requests based on “trivial matters”
• Grievences that are constantly reiterated which are “without substance and have no foundation".

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