South Ayrshire Council accused of 'bullying' village community council over hall transfer

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A community council says it is being threatened and punished by South Ayrshire Council (SAC) for its opposition to the transfer of Barr village hall.Barr Community Council (BCC) believes an ‘avalanche’ of complaints that began in 2022 stemmed from their criticism of the plan, leading to the entire group being suspended and threatened with being ‘dissolved’.The suspension coincided with a public consultation on the transfer, meaning the community council was unable to submit a response.Senior officers have been accused of ordering the community council to undertake training to address ‘deficincies’ despite apparently failing to tell them what the issues that led to the suspension were.The problems reportedly began when the community council questioned the benefits of Barr SCIO taking over the village hall from SAC.A community council representative sat on the SCIO board until 2022, when they left and weren’t replaced, which ‘upset’ the SCIO according to BCC chair Tom Walker.Over the next few months Barr SCIO and some of its members made several complaints about the community council.South Ayrshire Council officers then suspended the community council in November 2022 before they had even informed them of the allegations or began an investigation.The complaints themselves centred around claims of inaccurate minutes, comments made by the chair of BCC about the hall transfer, and the decision to send a council officer, who was leading the negotiations over the hall transfer, to sit with the public rather than at the main table during a community council meeting.There was also an appeal around the censure of a community councillor for a data breach after they received an email from an MSP meant for another member and then