UKIP Crawley Councillor pockets £512 per hour for a whole year of Council meetings

Good times - UKIP Councillor Karl Williamson (right) 

Ask any Councillor in Crawley (Conservative or Labour) as to who they believe does the least work out of all 37 Crawley Borough Councillors and ask who they hardly ever see, and the same name is likely to come up. That name is Karl Williamson who is the UKIP Councillor for Southgate, who along with Lee Gilroy left the Conservatives in July under a very dark cloud. This followed a huge 98% No Confidence vote in both of them by the Crawley Conservative Association after a widely-perceived failed takeover attempt of the Crawley party. Just three months later, they subsequently succeeded in taking over Crawley UKIP by using the same disreputable tactics of smearing an innocent colleague to try and seize their position.  

Many Crawley Councillors suspect that Cllr Williamson effectively gave up the role of being a Councillor many months ago, but that he is continuing to pocket the allowance that is paid by Crawley Borough Council for performing the role. I have heard other Councillors say that they believe Cllr Williamson is spending most of his spare time living it up and staying with friends some 5450 miles away in Los Angeles California, or that he may even be living in LA, as opposed to serving as a Councillor in Crawley and representing his forgotten Southgate constituents. As cabin crew for Virgin Atlantic, it is conceivable that he could stay on in LA after working on flights or that he gets very cheap flights there on his off-days, or could that be occasional cheap flights to the UK from his LA home?

As far as I know, Cllr Williamson was last seen at a Council meeting two months ago on December 18th. While meetings are not the only part of a Councillor’s workload, myself and other Councillors see no evidence whatsoever of anything else being done in his capacity as a Councillor. Other Southgate Councillors tell me that they never see him in Southgate and that he virtually never attends the Southgate Community Forum.

In desperation, some UKIP people might point to his very dubious weekly Crawley Observer column as evidence of some activity. However, most people I talk to at the town hall share my view that it is actually Lee Gilroy writing what can only be described as bile, on the odd occasions that it isn’t the usual plagiarised rubbish from the UKIP national website, which the Crawley Observer shamefully continues to be silent about.    

UKIP are renowned for being a party full of bogus claims, inaccuracies and rank hypocrisy. Such examples include claiming their Councillors work harder than those from other parties and that they aren’t interested in claiming allowances. They also like to infer that other parties’ Councillors are ‘on the make’ when in reality, most Councillors I know do work hard. In Crawley, this bile has been spouted by Cllr Williamson and by UKIP’s new Chairman Lee Gilroy, who has also publicly stated that he wants to be UKIP’s parliamentary candidate. Let’s check their accuracy and the record of UKIP’s only ever Councillor in Crawley, by documenting what meetings Cllr Williamson has attended over the last year from today (13th Feb 2014 back to 14th Feb 2013) and how long those meeting were. All this information is freely available on the Crawley Borough Council website.

18^th December 2013 - Full Council - 230 minutes (he left early)

12^th November 2013 - Licensing - 60 minutes

26^th September 2013 - Full Council - 155 minutes

10^th July 2013 - Cabinet - 77 minutes

24^th May 2013 - Annual Council - 46 minutes

3^rd April 2013 - Full Council - 220 minutes

20^th March 2013 - Cabinet - 97 minutes

27^th February 2013 - Full Council - 195 minutes

That is it, although I'm happy to be corrected if there is anything to add. These 8 meetings that he turned up to in an entire year add up to 1080 minutes which is exactly 18 hours. Cllr Williamson has presumably received all of his annual basic allowance of £5949 plus no doubt claimed 5.5 months of an annual special responsibility allowance of £7138 from mid-February to the end of July which is a further £3271.58. Therefore in the last 12 months he will have received £9220.58 from Crawley taxpayers and attended 8 meetings totalling 18 hours for an entire year. This equates to £1152.57 per meeting or £512.25 for each hour of his 18-hour-year.

I see no evidence that Cllr Williamson has done anything at all in the last two months as a Councillor - other than presumably receive two month’s payment totalling £991.50. This situation really is disgraceful and therefore I publicly call upon Karl Williamson to do the decent thing and resign as a Councillor so that Southgate can have an active and dedicated Councillor to represent the neighbourhood. This would enable a by-election (at no extra cost to the taxpayer) to be held on the 22nd of May, at the same time as the existing Council and European elections. Southgate really does deserve better than UKIP. 

Update 15th February - he has threatened legal action.