Councillor quits after rejection of merger bid

2:40pm Saturday 19th July 2008

Comments (1)   Have your say »

A SENIOR member of Malvern Hills District Council has resigned from the executive committee after the majority of his Conservative colleagues rejected a scheme to share services with Worcester City Council.

Paul Cumming, who represents the Woodbury ward and has been a district councillor for 11 years, made the surprise announcement at the council’s executive committee meeting on Thursday night.

Coun Cumming, who was portfolio holder for customer focus which includes the existing shared services of revenue and benefits, was a strong supporter of the proposal to join forces with the city council – revealed by your Worcester News on May 12.

“I believe quite strongly that the close joint working would have been successful but I wanted a detailed business case to prove that before going forward,” said Coun Cumming, who has been a member of the executive committee on the current and previous Conservative administrations for about six years. “Nothing has been said to convince me that the option of operating as individual councils is the best way. I felt my position was untenable. I was unable to support not proceeding with the business case on shared services.”

Coun Cumming runs his own engineering company and has been a director of several public limited companies. He is also a chartered accountant.

He said he felt the Wychavon, Worcester and Malvern shared revenue and benefits services were working well and that the decision by Malvern to continue independently of Worcester in other services would mean the council would develop at a slower rate.

He said the executive committee would now need to make the best of the current situation and he would concentrate on matters relating to his ward.

The majority of Conservative councillors decided at a private meeting to reject the merger idea.