So I’ve received an email cancelling the meeting of the district council’s Shareholder Committee which should have taken place next Wednesday 17 April.

The Shareholder Committee oversees the actions of the council’s Trading Company, which received a £5M loan from the council to set it up. The loan means that the financial health of the council is heavily dependent on the performance of the company, and the Shareholder Committee exists to represent the council’s interest in the company and scrutinise what the company is doing.

(In a further twist, the company’s financial performance – and its ability to repay that £5M loan in full – depends on the controversial 500 dwelling development at Kennett, for which the company will be applying to the council’s planning committee for planning permission later this month. Spot the conflicts of interest.)

The Shareholder Committee last met on 11 February, and the first meeting of the council’s new Finance & Assets Committee (which will take over the work of the Shareholder Committee) is on 27 June. That will be four and a half months with no public democratic oversight of the company that has borrowed millions of pounds of public money and is about to seek consent for an unpopular development just days before the council elections.

No reason has been given for the cancellation of this meeting, and it’s not the first time it has happened. This seems to be a worryingly casual approach by the Conservatives to the council’s company and the public money entrusted to it.