Oakham Carnival Funds Public Money given away

Oakham Carnival Chairman Cllr Maureen Dodds, earlier this year gave away the carnival funds to various charities of her choice, instead of returning the money to Oakham Town Council.

Rules state grants can only be given for the use and benefit of residents in a parish in this case Oakham.
The grants must be spent within the 12 months or return to the authority who awarded the grant.

The town council was expecting the money to be returned without using a formal request so it could use the money to fund an event this year in Cutts Close.

Cllr Maureen Dodds obviously was not happy with this and went away and said she distributed the money to Oakham and Rutland Charities.

At the time I complained and as normal was ignored by the Town Council and Rutland County Council.

I have since made another request for the council to attempt to recover the lost funds, the Town Clerk has now agreed to seek advice from NALC

Oakham Carnival was disbanded after a huge argument amongst committee members. Cllr Dodds as the Chairman I believe made the wrong decision to wind up the committee's affairs on her own.