Cllr Leo Livingston Griggs

Once is a mistake, twice is a pattern, three times is a habit.

Cllr Leo Livingston Griggs of Sandgate Parish Council has failed to declare disclosable pecunariary interests, just Like Cllr David Drury Monk. We have met Leo before. He was the one who bought 15 Grace Hill for £105’000 and sold it to Oportunitas -SDC’s company for £500’000.

Leo as we shall call him, admits to being a director in two companies, they being, Alliance Building Company Contracts Ltd and Livingston Homes Ltd. See → Declaration file for Leo Griggs

However Leo has failed to inform the monitoring officer of another 3 companies of which he is a Director and therefore has a “beneficial Interest.” See → Active Directorships

So, Leo is also a Director in Llg Ltd, 19 Sandgate High Street Ltd and M&M Hairdressers Ltd.

SDC’s Code of Conduct for Members Annex 2  second to last page → Councillor_code_of_conduct states the following:

Disclosable Pecuniary Interests, as prescribed by regulations, are as follows:

The descriptions on Disclosable Pecuniary Interests are subject to the following definitions:

“the Act” means the Localism Act 2011

“body in which the relevant person has a beneficial interest” means a firm in which the relevant person is a partner or a body corporate of which the relevant person is a director, or in the securities of which the relevant person has a beneficial interest.”

Leo is a Director, therefore should have declared these interests.

It is the Monitoring Officer’s job to check if the facts Cllrs present on the forms are correct. How much checking does the MO do? It took us less than 5 minutes to discover Leo’s Directorships. It is evident the Monitoring Officer Amandeep Khroud hasn’t checked sufficiently. Is that willful blindness? Lack of time or resources? Who knows. For what reasons we do not know nor are we the residents of Shepway likely to know/ be informed. Now this blog post has let the cat out the bag so to speak, it is obligatory the MO investigate. We hope they will and we look forward to seeing Leo’s and David’s new Notification of Disclosable Pecunairy Interests on the SDC’s website in the near future after an investigation has taken place.

To make a formal complaint it’s necessary to write to the monitoring officer @ amandeep.khroud@shepway.gov.uk and david.owen@shepway.gov.uk . It is the only way to try to make Cllrs – and we mean all Cllrs, Parish, Town, District and County Cllrs -open and transparent about their interests.

Shepwayvox