Madam,

If Machynlleth’s town clerk, Jim Griffiths, is considering legal action over an item of correspondence he received concerning his decision to sanction the felling of several trees in the Plas grounds, I suppose it is best not to comment about it on your letters page for fear of similar repercussions.

However, I think maybe a more basic question is being overlooked in the understandably emotive subject of the trees’ removal. That is, why did the town clerk take that decision unilaterally in the first place?

Nowhere in the Cambrian News’ items on this matter nor in other correspondences I have read has there been any suggestion that Machynlleth councillors were involved in this matter in advance of the trees being felled? Why was this?

Last May, Machynlleth residents elected 12 people to represent them and to make decisions on their behalf. Furthermore, we pay council taxes so that the council can employ staff to carry out their instructions. The town clerk is one of those employees.

It is the clerk’s job to act on the decisions reached at council meetings, not to plough on without consulting councillors and then seek approval in retrospect.

Furthermore, the town council also employs a manager to oversee matters regarding the Plas and its grounds. The Plas manager chairs a monthly panel of councillors to discuss such matters. Was the manager consulted over this? And if not, why not?

I note from your report that the town clerk presented an ultimatum to the councillors to either back him or he would stand down.

If this is correct, I am sorry but he has absolutely no right to hold our elected representatives over a barrel in such a way. He works for them, not the other way around. From what your reports say, the ball would appear to lie squarely in his court.

It is to be hoped that the council’s decision to retrospectively back the clerk’s actions does not mean that we, the council taxpayers, will end up footing the bill for any litigation which he is considering.

We have already seen an 18.7 per cent rise in the council’s precept something the clerk justified as being just the cost of one Mars bar per week. Any legal action taken by the clerk would cost the council the equivalent of an entire sweet shop!

In my opinion the clerk should pay any such legal costs out of his own pocket if, as your reports suggest, he appears to have taken the decision alone.

Yours etc,

Gareth Jones, Trem yr Allt, Machynlleth.

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