A DISASTROUS meeting was labelled a “disgrace of democracy” after councillors argued about who should be the chairman.

Councillors sitting on the Windsor Town Forum were meant to hear updates from the town centre manager, Thames Valley Police, and consultations concerning Windsor.

But after a delayed start, the meeting, which was held on Tuesday, November 15, quickly descended into chaos after members could not agree on who should chair the forum for just that night.

Both the chairman, Cllr Samantha Rayner (Con: Eton & Castle), and vice-chairman, Cllr David Cannon (Con: Datchet, Horton & Wraysbury), could not attend the meeting.

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After Cllrs John Bowden (Con: Eton & Castle), Jon Davey (Ind: Clewer & Dedworth West), and Helen Price (TBFI: Clewer & Dedworth East) failed to get enough votes to become chairman, a decision was finally made for Cllr Julian Sharpe (Con: Ascot & Sunninghill) to chair the meeting.

Cllrs Amy Tisi (Lib Dem: Clewer East) and Davey broke convention and voted for Cllr Sharpe after having enough of “these silly little games”. Cllr Davey said he would have liked to see a Windsor councillor chair the meeting given it’s a Windsor Town Forum.

An attempt to agree on a temporary chairman in advance of the meeting to avoid this disaster also came to no avail.

While it looked like the meeting was getting on track, Cllr Sharpe’s connection kept dropping, making it impossible to chair the meeting.

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With tempers rising, councillors, with regret, decided to adjourn the meeting only 15 minutes in.

Cllr Carole Da Costa (WWRA: Clewer & Dedworth East) said: “This is ridiculous. It’s nearly 6:50pm and the meeting should have started 20 minutes ago. This is an absolute disgrace of democracy and how things should take place.”