COUNCILLORS were disappointed when an annual meeting held to allow community groups to share their good news failed to attract a single person.

The annual parish meeting was hosted by Wellington Town Council on Wednesday (May 27) and it usually sees representatives of local groups and members of the public come together to talk about local community work and issues.

Invites go out each year to those organisations who have received funding from the council over the past year, including those who have had grants for various projects and longer-term financial backing known as service level agreements, to give short presentations.

But the public gallery was embarrassingly empty and councillors in attendance were left disappointed.

The council’s democratic and finance assistant, Wasif Choudhury, told the meeting that he had received apologies from a number of groups to say that they would not be attending.

Mr Choudhury said that one group had informed him they would provide a report for a future meeting of the council’s policy and finance committee.

But Cllr John Thorne said: “I am disappointed that there is nobody here. It is part of our grants policy that the groups need to feedback to us and tell us what they have spent the money on, but nobody has come.

“It’s very disappointing and I think we will have to lay it on a bit thicker in future that when we hold this meeting next May that we will be expecting someone to attend and talk to us.”

The council’s chief executive, Dave Farrow, said that the annual parish meeting was a chance for groups to come and talk to members of the public rather than councillors.

“But by not attending they aren’t in any breach of agreement as such,” said Mr Farrow.

Former mayor, Cllr Janet Lloyd, said that the annual parish meeting had in previous years seen a good number of people attend where they had raised various issues and concerns about the town.

“It’s all well and good people going onto Facebook and whinging about things, but they need to come and speak to us,” she said.

But the mayor, Cllr Mark Lithgow, said it was a positive sign that nobody had turned up for the meeting and an indication that the council was doing a good job.

“People tend to come out when they want to complain about things or criticise,” he said. “Members of the public don’t really come to meetings to praise people – although we did recently when two gentlemen came and thanked us about how we’d dealt with the recent travellers in Wellington.

“So overall I’m not that disappointed about nobody being here. I would be far more concerned if 50 people were here to have a word.

“I think the non-attendance is the public giving the council a silent well done.”

But the mayor did say he was disappointed that nobody from the groups who had received council funding over the past 12 months had bothered to attend after being invited.