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When allegations regarding Canterbury City Council were published in the satirical magazine Private Eye recently it provoked much local public interest and comment on social media.
We cannot tell you about the substance of the Private Eye allegations or comment on their accuracy for legal reasons. In response to requests for comment, Whitstable Views received two detailed legal letters from London-based lawyers, Carter-Ruck, on behalf of their client, former Tory Canterbury councillor, Louise Jones-Roberts. These letters contain private and confidential information about their client that we are not permitted to publish.
This local news story raises legitimate public interest questions about local democracy and transparency — but as a small independent community news site we are not in a position to engage in legal argument with one of the UK’s best-known law firms, with a global reputation in the fields of reputation management and libel.
All credit to the KM group for running the story today but we cannot comment on the content of that either, for fear of litigation.
According to Land Registry records, the extensive property in question was bought by Ms Jones-Roberts. We are not permitted to describe the property or tell you where it is, when it was purchased, nor how much it cost. This property was submitted for inclusion as a development site in the Canterbury City Council draft Local Plan when it was published for public consultation in October 2022. At this time both the owner and her husband, Matthew Jones-Roberts were serving as Conservative members of the city council.
The same site is already the subject of two subsequent planning submissions to Canterbury City Council related to the development of 100 new homes, neither of which mention the owners. If the land is confirmed as a development site and planning consent is granted, its commercial value will multiply many times over.
The council insists that all is legal and above board. On the afternoon of August 23 2023, council spokesman Rob Davies sent a detailed update to all councillors outlining several errors in the Private Eye report and stating:
“We can confirm that Mr and Mrs Jones-Roberts declared the property referred to in the story on their register of interests. However, the monitoring officers at the time deemed that it was appropriate to withhold the address information on the published interests form in accordance with section 32 of the Localism Act 2011.
“While it would not be appropriate to provide the exact detail of this section 32 ruling, we can clearly state that all future decisions on transparency flowed from it.”
Chapter 7, Section 32 of the Act allows a council member or a monitoring officer to withdraw the address of a councillor’s pecuniary interest only if it would mean that member “being subject to violence or intimidation.”
One legitimate question this raises is, what evidence did the council possess in order to believe that Mr or Mrs Jones-Roberts would be subject to violence? And assuming that evidence was available, why were the property details and her financial interest not disclosed in confidence to all councillors and relevant officers?
“It was all kept very quiet — the perception is that it was very underhand, and that’s not good for local democracy,” says former councillor Derek Maslin, who says he was “very surprised” to see the property included in the draft Local Plan. Neither Ms Jones-Roberts nor her husband, stood for re-election in May 2023 and no longer serve on the Council.
Another councillor who was serving at the time agreed to speak at length to Whitstable Views only if their name was withheld for fear of litigation. They outlined in detail their strongly held misgivings about how the submission of the unnamed property owned by Louise Jones-Roberts found its way into the draft Local Plan and about a lack of transparency surrounding it.
The Liberal Democrat group at the council issued a statement saying they were “concerned” about the case and are backing an independent investigation.
The Green Party has asked for assurances that there are not more properties included for development in the draft Local Plan that might be owned by councillors.
“Councillors are there to serve local residents, so transparency in their work is vital — it is shocking for the council to be exposed in this way,” said Green group leader Clare Turnbull.
The importance of transparency is explicit on the council’s website:
“IMPORTANT. It is a criminal offence to fail to notify the monitoring officer of any disclosable pecuniary interests (DPIs)”
“Over the years, three different monitoring officers have reached the same conclusion in relation to section 32 of the Localism Act and the interests of Ms Jones-Roberts and, latterly, Mr Jones-Roberts,” a spokesperson for the council told Whitstable Views.
It seems that in this case it was both legal, proper and appropriate for council officers to conceal from elected members the fact that their fellow councillors submitted, via third-party consultants, their own land for consideration as a housing development zone in the draft Local Plan — with a potential financial gain of millions of pounds.
Not even the local ward councillor for the area knew his fellow councillor owned the large property on his patch or its submission for the Local Plan. When the Kent Messenger ran an earlier feature story about the proposed development on the site, the owners were not mentioned, even though Mr and Ms Jones-Roberts were both still serving on the council at the time.
The published minutes of the meeting dated January 5 2023, section 482, which approved the council’s cabinet minutes — including publication of the draft Local Plan for public consultation — confirms that both councillors abstained from general assent in relation to licensing sub-committee minutes at item 14 due to their being employed within the licensing trade. However, the couple said nothing at the meeting about ownership of their property and its inclusion in the draft Local Plan, which they subsequently voted through for publication for consultation knowing they would derive a financial benefit from it if it was approved.
This too it seems was all legal and above board. According to the council and Ms Jones-Roberts’ legal representatives, all these disclosures had either been made properly in advance or were not legally necessary because it was a consultation document not a final approved version of the Local Plan.
“Given the interest of residents, councillors and the media in this case, the council’s service director for finance & procurement has asked the East Kent Audit Partnership (EKAP) to look into it,“ says the council spokesperson.
We await the findings with interest but to date several Councillors are concerned that even the terms of this investigation are not being disclosed.
Stuart Heaver
Professional journalist and author.
New book was published by The History Press on 23 June 2022.
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