As several residents have asked us about declaration of interest with regard to the decision-making on the Brookes application at last week’s full council meeting, I felt I should publish this reply.

 I gave my apologies for the full meeting of Council for the following reason.  Councillors are bound by a code of conduct which is available for you to see on the council’s website. Where the subject for debate is a planning application, any councillor who has an interest must declare it. If the interest may be deemed to be prejudicial to any decision that councillor may take in the eyes of the general public, then the advice to councillors is that they should formally declare a prejudicial interest and withdraw from the debate, and that they are ineligible to vote on the application.
 
This item had already come up at Area Committee for comment. I sought legal advice about whether I should declare a personal or a prejudicial interest, and was advised that members of the public might be led to believe that I would not have an open mind on the merits of the application because I am employed by Oxford Brookes University (as Site Services Librarian at the Wheatley Campus). I declared a prejudicial interest and withdrew from the meeting at the point that the planning application was discussed.
 
The special council meeting called at short notice had only one item on the agenda – the Brookes application. If I had made the decision to attend, I would have walked into the Chamber, declared a prejudicial interest, and been obliged to withdraw again.  I made the decision that this would not be in the best interests of the ward I represent, and chose to spend the time instead making ward visits and completing casework.  I duly sent in my apologies on the grounds that I would have to declare prejudicial interest in any case, but this was not reported in the Press.

So if you are wondering why Cllr Wilkinson’s name was missing from the list of those present, this is why!