Uppingham Councillors wants to organise a public meeting with the police and crime commissioner after a series of vandalism and anti-social behaviour incident. 

At an Uppingham Town Council meeting last night (January 8) the council, which is chaired by David Ainslie, resolved to set up the meeting with Leicestershire and Rutland commissioner Rupert Matthews (Con) to try and address a spate of vandalism in recent weeks. 

Over the Christmas period, there was vandalism in the Leicester Road cemetery plus some damage done to the public toilets. 

Cllr Trevor Colbourne said the policing service in the town had 'deteriorated' since former dedicated beat officer Rebecca Angel had left and he was certain that a public meeting about policing in the town would be well attended. 

Another matter addressed at the meeting, held at its offices in High Street East, was a write off of some historic debts. The clerk Adam Lowe said when he took over the role there was more than £10,000 of debts outstanding but these had now been reduced to less than £1,500, which he advised the authority to write off. However the matter was deferred as Cllr Lindsay Cooper said the full council should see a list of the people and businesses whose debts would be written off, before the authority approved it. 

The council also agreed to spend about £8,000 on a new hearing loop and more than £2,500 on playground repairs. It also set up a working group to spend almost £90,000 of money that has come into the council due to developments. 

The authority has been through turmoil in recent months and a group of seven resigned at a meeting this summer over links between the council and the private company Uppingham First. 

At last night's meeting there was some hangover from the fallout as former councillor Peter Rees challenged Cllr Ainslie on his knowledge of the intention by a house builder to dig a drainage hole on council land at the allotment. 

The chairman accused Mr Rees of making a personal attack. Another former councillor Mike Fish also took issue with the council's new newsletter as he said that in it, Cllr Ainslie had misrepresented the reasons for the resignations and said there was often a 'wall of silence' in the council chamber.