TORY councillors have decided – on your behalf – that Malvern Hills District Council would share a chief executive with Wychavon District Council.

They did so in wilful ignorance. They can have no idea whether this is the best course of action for Malvern, having refused opposition requests that we look at each of the available options, not just this one.

There has been no cost benefit analysis carried out, no consideration of the strengths and weaknesses of the different possibilities. Nothing.

Would any credible business behave in this way – let alone a public authority spending residents’ money?

Further, even though it has been shown that the council was shamefully mislead at the June council meeting where this was first discussed, Tory councillors still fell in meekly behind the leadership and voted for a shared chief executive.

We were given very firm assurances at that meeting that sharing a chief executive would not mean also sharing a senior management team, with all that meant in terms of employment of council staff in our district and the loss of democratic control.

But, in fact, the Tory leadership had already prepared a bid for central government funding that requires a move to sharing senior managers and redundancies.

Could the baffling “loyalty” of Tory councillors have anything to do with the fact that the party hierarchy is about to select its candidates for next May’s election? Who knows?

What we do know is that this shows contempt for fellow councillors, it shows contempt for the democratic process, and worse of all it shows complete contempt for the best interest of Malvern Hills residents.

Julian Roskams

Malvern