This afternoon, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead have notified us that Councillor Ross McWilliams (Conservative, Cox Green) has been found guilty of “bringing his role and local authority into disrepute”.
The panel was made up of one of his fellow Conservative councillors, one independent councillor and an independent non-elected person. It was unanimous in its verdict.
Twenty people submitted complaints after the Maidenhead
Planning meeting on the 17th of November 2021. During this meeting,
Cllr. McWilliams proposed to ignore the advice of professional planning
officers, which was to reject planning application 21/02866/FULL. He persuaded
the Conservative bloc to support it, including his ward colleague, Cllr. Philip
Haseler, who had, in the previous February, voted against the near identical
application. In fact, the vagaries of the voting system saw Cllr. Haseler
contradict his earlier opinion four times throughout that one evening!
They continued to support him after Cllr. John Baldwin (Lib Dem, Belmont) publicly
revealed that Cllr. McWilliams had concealed his close relationship to the applicant.
We understand from local press reports that another party connected to the
application is now his employer.
On the night, no-one was aware that Cllr. McWilliams had been advised by the most senior legal officer on RBWM’s staff not to participate. Advice he chose to ignore.
This Councillor is still a serving Cabinet Lead Member with
responsibility for Housing Opportunity (for who, we wonder? It’s certainly not
you.), Digital Connectivity and Sport & Leisure.
Council Leader, Cllr. Andrew Johnson (Conservative, Hurley and Walthams) has a
decision to make.
He must either accept the verdict and dismiss
Cllr. McWilliams or admit that his administration thinks it appropriate to cede
huge influence to a person who has, and therefore must continue to, damage the
reputation of our Royal Borough.