North Norfolk Conservatives want urgent meeting on police investigation at council

The North Norfolk District Council offices at Cromer. Photo: Archant (Image: © ARCHANT NORFOLK 2011)

Police are looking at the way a contract was awarded by the Liberal Democrat-run council to carry out a £30,000 “capability review” of the authority last year.

Leader of the Conservative opposition, Christopher Cushing, has now called for an “extraordinary meeting” of the council “at the earliest possible opportunity”.

“There is an urgent need for Cllr Sarah Bütikofer, as leader of the Liberal Democrats, to fully explain the circumstances regarding this criminal investigation,” he said.

Conservative MP for North Norfolk, Duncan Baker, said: “I first questioned the procurement of a capability review and its £1000-a-day cost last year. I am appalled to learn that a police investigation is under way at NNDC and as one of the two MPs for the area I will urgently be seeking answers.”

Broadland Conservative MP Jerome Mayhew has also called for a meeting into the police investigation at the council. Picture: Danielle Booden (Image: Danielle Booden)

His Conservative colleague, Jerome Mayhew, MP for Broadland, added: “I am concerned to hear of the investigation and fully support the calls for an extraordinary meeting, which I will be attending to hear for myself the explanations given.”

However, on Monday an NNDC spokesman said they were limited as to what they could say because of the police investigation.

They said they would be “co-operating fully” with the police and added that a council investigation into the matter in December 2019 had found that there was no need to take any action about the awarding of the contract.

They added: “Subsequently, the council was contacted by Cambridgeshire Police in July 2020 asking for us to help them with investigations they were carrying out into the procurement procedures employed by the council when the review was implemented.”