COUNCILLORS have vowed to drag Wellington Town Council into the 21st Century by taking on more staff and updating its ancient computer equipment to provide more services for the community.

It was announced recently that assistant town clerk Gill Croucher was to leave her role next month which would mean the only staff member left at the helm would be town clerk Kathryn Hemensley.

Councillors, speaking at the full town council meeting, said the authority was at ‘crunch point’ and needed to do something urgently or the authority would cease to operate properly.

The council’s staffing and resources committee met at the end of May and decided that ‘enough was enough’ and recommended more staff, resources and equipment were urgently needed.

Cllr Mark Lithgow, speaking at the full council meeting, said: “We are a growing town and yet Kathryn would be left on her own when Gill goes.

“We have a laptop and one computer which are run by a mouse on a wheel – it is that old.

“We must make these changes or the council will fail.”

The council heard that the town clerk was doing ‘over and above’ her normal office hours and it was feared that pressure of work could take its toll with stress-related illnesses.

Cllr Lithgow said: “I don’t want to be over dramatic but if something happens to the town clerk through the pressures and stresses of work – the town council office will shut. We are grossly under-staffed and we are at crunch point.”

Councillors agreed to look at taking on the equivalent of four full-time staff members as opposed to the current two members of staff, upgrade the council’s computer equipment and investigate ways of improving security at the authority’s offices in Fore Street.

Cllr John Thorne said: “We now have an opportunity to drag this council into the 21st Century – we’ve had years and years where we have not been doing this.

“It’s not right that our office is only open three hours a day – we need to be open from 9am-5pm on five days a week.

“We’ve been doing a lot with just two staff but there is a lot that we don’t do because we haven’t had the staff to do it.

“There is a heck of a lot more that we could be doing for this town but we can’t because of a lack of staff.

“We need to demand better for the community and to do that we need extra staff.

“We need to have that ability to do it when we need to do it. We need to be brave and bold – we are at crisis point.” And Cllr Thorne said: “The work that is being put on the town clerk is unbelievable and we really need to think responsibly about the health and well-being of our staff.”

Cllr Marcus Barr added: “Back in 2015 the council was stuck in the Stone Age and wasn’t reacting fast enough. This council needs to modernise and be up-to-date with communications.

“We need to do things faster and we can only do that with more staff. Now we have a golden opportunity to make change.

“We should even put our precept up on the Council Tax to improve things – if we don’t, we will just stay as we are.”

Cllrs Andrew Govier and James Hunt – although realising that something needed to happen – were slightly concerned about the cost implications of replacing two part-time staff positions with four full-time jobs, which would more than double the wage bill.

But Cllr Lithgow said the council was ‘not struggling’ financially and it had a healthy bank balance.

“If we don’t spend the money now we will be going backwards rather than going out and doing what we should be doing as a council,” he said.

Cllr Nick Smith added: “If we don’t have the staff – we don’t have a council. I can’t run my car if it hasn’t got any petrol.”