A new survey has been conducted asking residents of Thanet to undertake a survey into confidence of the current councillors at Thanet District Council.
Residents were presented with a list of current councillors and asked who they would keep, who they would throw away and who they didn’t know.
The most striking result is that only 3% of people have any confidence in the leadership of Thanet District Council Clive Hart, with only slightly more indicating they had any confidence in Deputy Leader Alan Poole or Chair of the Council, Kay Dark.
The most popular councillor amongst the poll is Councillor Kim Gibson, current Mayor of Ramsgate. Councillors Campbell, Everett, Scobie (Will) and Wells all made the top five.
Binks, Bruce, Edwards, Hornus and Marson were in the top ten.
As a general trend, the public have more confidence in ‘new blood’ in Thanet Council and older more established councillors rated badly.
People are indicating they have low confidence in the current leadership and administration, with the leader ranking bottom, his deputy second from bottom and Chair of the Council also in the bottom five.
The leader of the Conservative group Bob Bayford managed to be in the top half but his deputy Martin Wise faired off much worse, being in the bottom 5. Independent councillor John Worrow also faired badly, which could be as a result of recent press coverage.
Over one hundred people responded to the survey including ten current councillors from all parties. Respondents considered that they had a good level of understanding of the current councillors.
Just over 15% of responders indicated they would remove all councillors from TDC and less than 5% would keep Clive Hart, Alan Poole or Kay Dark.
Comments included that people felt the council was “out of control”. One respondent said, “They seem to be stumbling from one disaster to another” and it is felt that many decisions are a “shambles”.
The research was under taken by In Touch with Thanet. It was 103 people. The methodology for the results was to take the number of “Throw” votes away from double the number of “Keep” votes. Its an indicative metric.
| GIBSON | 50 |
| SCOBIE (w) | 36 |
| CAMPBELL | 33 |
| EVERITT | 32 |
| WELLS | 29 |
| MARSON | 28 |
| BINKS | 26 |
| EDWARDS | 25 |
| BRUCE | 23 |
| HORNUS | 21 |
| SAVAGE | 21 |
| GREEN (L) | 20 |
| GREEN (D) | 15 |
| HIBBERT | 11 |
| HUXLEY | 9 |
| ALEXANDROU | 9 |
| JOHNSON | 7 |
| GIDEON | 6 |
| GROVE | 5 |
| DRIVER | 4 |
| HART (S) | 2 |
| ALDRED | 2 |
| SCOBIE | 2 |
| CLARK | 2 |
| MOORES | 1 |
| ROBERTS | 1 |
| BAYFORD | 0 |
| NICHOLSON | -14 |
| MATTERFACE | -17 |
| GREGORY (I) | -20 |
| KING | -26 |
| KIRBY | -27 |
| COLEMAN-COOKE | -27 |
| COHEN | -28 |
| GREGORY (K) | -29 |
| LODGE-PRICHARD | -30 |
| SULLIVAN | -31 |
| HAYTON | -32 |
| SAUNDERS (M) | -33 |
| SAUNDERS (D) | -34 |
| HARRISON | -35 |
| DUNCAN | -35 |
| FENNER | -37 |
| DWYER | -38 |
| WATKINS | -40 |
| MOORE | -43 |
| THOMLINSON (M) | -44 |
| THOMLINSON (S) | -45 |
| DAY | -46 |
| WILTSHIRE | -53 |
| WISE | -55 |
| DARK | -56 |
| WORROW | -56 |
| POOLE | -63 |
| HART | -66 |
