The first step would be for the Council to rescind its illegal 'banning' of two innocent councillors who were wrongly accused of bullying and harassing staff.
At its May '17 meeting, LTC voted to continue to sanction Andrew Harrison and Liz Harvey, preventing them from fulfilling their duties as elected councillors, and writing once again to every local organisation to explain why. No evidence of wrong-doing was presented to councillors. It was simply an extension of the previous year's sanctions against them.
Just two days before, Harrison and Harvey had been found innocent of all the damaging accusations of staff bullying and harassment after an independent investigation by the county's chief legal officer.
Not only this but Herefordshire Council had written to the council to say that the sanctions against them were unlawful, they were acting ultra vires.
Harrison and Harvey are not bullies. They are innocent. The campaign against them has caused great distress, and potentially damaged their professional reputations.
This is not a silly little tit-for-tat argument: people's reputations are being trashed, their mental health damaged, their livelihoods and well-being ruined. Should they just say, oh well, let's move on now? Or do they, in the interests of genuine reconciliation, at least expect that matters are put right, and that steps are taken to ensure the wrongs don't happen again?
When a very serious miscarriage of justice has occurred, whose effects are still in force, can it be right that we simply leave the past behind? For the two injured parties, and all those decent people who espouse fairness and truthfulness, the past is still happening, horribly so. How can there be reconciliation while this calumny is allowed to continue?
LTC must rescind all its sanctions against Andrew and Liz (for they are innocent). Then all the parties involved - including the town council staff - must come together and listen to each other with the genuine aim of charting a way forward that will enable everyone to begin working productively for Ledbury.