Misconduct in Public Office leads to loss of Office?
Could it be that the Datchet Parish Council Chair, some Councillors and/or the Clerk find themselves in a MiPO predicament resulting in the loss of their office? Below is the Parish Office at 1 Allen Way, Datchet.
Since April 2025 some mainly new (i.e. co-opted) Datchet Parish Councillors and the Clerk have been attempting (but failed) to displace the properly appointed Trustees (April 2019) and hijack the valuable assets of the Datchet Recreation Centre Charity Trust (DRCCT) that dates back to the 1960’s. These assets include land and a building previously used firstly as a Library, and then as the Parish Office since about 2006. This building (1 Allen Way) is owned by the DRCCT – not the Parish Council.
Rather than openly raise and consider any issues, a meeting held in Windsor in April 2025 and using a report from the Clerk simply decided to replace the DRCCT Trustees, to make a dawn raid on the Village Hall and to change the locks. The nine DPC members that voted for this action at the time are as follows:
- Chairman David Buckley,
- Darren Sanders,
- Caroline Wise,
- Andrew Clemins,
- Cllr Glover, [resigned]
- Cllr Young,
- Cllr Bacon,
- Cllr Loveridge
- Cllr Whelan
You will find the names of the Councillors recorded on a DPC report here. There is a Datchet Parish Council Facebook post here and a Slough Observer report here.
Sadly for these named Datchet Parish Councillors, Charity Trusts are run by Trustees. A Parish Councillor can also be a Trustee – but the governance rules for Parish Councils and Trusts are different.
A year on and these Councillors and the Clerk have failed. Worse still, it now appears that Datchet Parish Council has no lease on the Parish Office (1 Allen Way, Datchet) and is no longer working in accordance with the previously agreed ‘Division of Responsibilities’ document.
When the problems first arose, the Trustees of the DRCCT attempted to explain the situation and the differences here
There is a Slough Observer article dated October 2025 here
Consequently the Trustees of the DRCCT have now given Datchet Parish Council ‘Notice to Vacate’
The current DRCCT details (Charity Number 252303) are recorded on the Charity Commission website here.
The current DRCCT Trustee details are recorded on the Charity Commission website here and as below.
2 Trustee(s)
| Name | Role | Date of appointment | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EWAN LARCOMBE | Chair | 08 April 2019 |
|
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| Monica Davies | Trustee | 08 April 2019 | ||||||