Billy’s search can be stood down

Billy Fox, the SIC deputy leader, says he has “searched and asked for the minutes of the meeting where the council debated and took the decision to lobby for an interconnector [cable]” (‘When did the council debate this?’, SN 11/8/14).

If he reads the Shetland Community Plan, to which he raised no objection when it was considered by the council, he will find it commits the SIC and its partners to “lobby National Grid to install [a] 650MW (or larger) interconnector by 2018”.

Section 4.2 of the council’s Economic Development Plan, approved on 12 March this year by the development committee, of which Billy is a member, commits the SIC to “support local efforts to establish an interconnector between Shetland and the UK mainland”. The reference is online at http://www.shetland.gov.uk/coins/viewSelectedDocument.asp?c=e%97%9Dc%96r%7D%8A

The minutes of the meeting show that Billy was present. If there was no debate, perhaps it was because he did not start one, either at the committee or at the subsequent full council meeting which approved the development committee’s report, under our open and democratic system.

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If Billy now wishes to change council policy on the cable, he is welcome to try. But he surely cannot do so while remaining as deputy leader, because in that office his job is to support and promote democratically agreed council policy, not to sabotage it.

So perhaps he really should “stand down”, after all. His disgraceful, snide attack on Allan Wishart’s record of service as transport chair is in any case sufficient reason for the deputy leader to “consider his position”, I would have thought.

Cllr. Jonathan Wills

Town Hall

Lerwick