In a dramatic meeting, eight councillors - including the mayor and her deputy - as well as the clerk quit their roles at Downham Market town council this week. SARAH HUSSAIN explains the tangled saga behind the resignations.
The pandemic has had all sorts of unforeseen consequences. But its impact on Downham Market Town Council has been perhaps one of the most unexpected.
It was with the reopening of the market - from which the town takes its name - at the end of the first lockdown in 2020 that the cracks started to emerge.
Over the next two years, those cracks have deepened and calcified, and led - via quite a few twists and turns - to this week's dramatic resignations which have left the council in disarray, with only ten serving members and vacancies for mayor, deputy mayor and clerk.
When the market reopened in June 2020 it was with a reduced number of traders and under socially distanced measures, which at the time included the installation of barriers and the introduction of queuing.
The authority was criticised for its delayed approach to reopening the site and some traders were soon raising concerns over its management and its future.
They criticised a new "draconian rulebook" which was introduced following changes to the market byelaws and said the site had been left "devastated" by the new rules.
Councillors and the town's clerk Elaine Oliver were accused of trying to shut the site down - something they have repeatedly denied, saying they have been working hard to make it "bigger and better". They argued that the previous byelaws "were unfair and outdated".
Critics of the council set up a 'save our market' petition in September 2020 calling on members of the authority's market committee to step down.
But following a meeting, then mayor Becky Hayes said lessons had been learned by both sides in the dispute, and that the two parties hoped they would be able to move forward.
It was a vain hope. Much bitterness remained, and tensions in the town have continued to run high - especially at council meetings.
One such meeting, last September, descended into chaos when police were called after a member of the public accused the council and clerk of ruining the market.
Following that meeting, two traders had their licences revoked, with the authority accusing them of "significantly breaching" the licence terms.
A later appeal panel and meeting saw the licences returned to the traders, who described their "devastation" over the decision.
The concerns of both sides in this dispute have been raised with the local MP, Liz Truss - currently involved in a different sort of conflict resolution, as she seeks to ease tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
She first became involved in the market dispute in August 2020, calling for both sides to find a resolution. Then, last year, she offered to support the council through a mediation process.
The latter initiative came after Stuart Dark, leader of West Norfolk Council, said his authority would pay part of the costs of the mediation in an attempt to break what he called a "harmful cycle of behaviour".
In his letter to Jenny Groom the then mayor of Downham, Mr Dark said despite the ongoing involvement of a monitoring officer, he was "very concerned" that the situation was not improving and was "actually getting worse with positions both between councillors and with sections of the community seemingly becoming more entrenched and openly hostile".
Ms Groom hoped the town could "move forward" after the election of market trader Tony Leach onto the council, who won a vacant seat in a by-election in November 2021.
The market trader of 30 years accused some councillors of trying to run the town down, saying at the time he stood for the seat to get it "back for the people".
But the council has been unable to move forward, as Ms Groom had hoped.
The discord has remained, with the council split into two groups: on the one side are those who support the traders and on the other, the leadership, who back the changes to the site.
The tensions erupted with this week's extraordinary events.
The first signs of trouble were the recent resignations of Rachel Hepworth and Josie Ratcliffe from the council.
Ms Ratcliffe said she had stepped down after an "unpleasant element" had been targeting her online and making her "very unwelcome".
Then came Tuesday's council meeting, where Ms Groom announced her own resignation, that of the clerk and of six other councillors.
In her speech, Ms Groom said the council was "associated with a toxic environment". She added: "I now find myself surrounded by back-biting, bullying, vested interests and point scoring."
Her deputy Jackie Westrop also announced she was stepping down and the pair walked out of the meeting together.
In a joint resignation letter which was read out at the meeting, the other six councillors - Elizabeth Hendry, Alan Pickering, Willow Woodmin, Jo Woodmin, Ms Hayes and Simon Gomes-DaCosta - said they were taking a stand against "continued and incessant bullying".
They also cited a complaint against one councillor, Doug Lawson, which had yet to be resolved.
They said: "A code of conduct complaint regarding Cllr Lawson was filed with the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk monitoring officer in October of 2020. Two years later we are still waiting the outcome."
In her resignation letter, Ms Hayes, who served as mayor before Ms Groom, alleged there has been a "sustained campaign of hate, harassment, and threats" against the leadership of the council, its staff and some councillors and members of the public.
She added: "This is above and beyond what could be reasonably expected in the 'rough and tumble of politics' and has had a detrimental impact on many, causing a disproportionate number of councillors to resign over the past two years."
Ms Hayes said the council had "many achievements" over the past few years which she said included new events being planned and plans to expand the market.
She said: "Whilst we shall no longer be on the council, we will continue to monitor the progress and behaviour of the council with interest and will make ourselves available to support the residents of the town."
Whether the exodus of councillors will resolve matters remains to be seen.
The initial signs are not promising. One of the remaining members, Mr Lawson - a leading figure in the 'market trader' faction - said at the end of the meeting that he would be asking a solicitor to look over the comments made about him by his departing colleagues. “There’a a lot of fiction, a lot of false accusations, and I actually don’t recognise any of them," he said.
The town's residents, meanwhile, must simply look on at the goings-on among their elected representatives with bemusement and wonder when it will end.
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