Torbay councillor resigns from ‘champion’ role over Mayoral row

“I now believe that Torbay Council is going backwards"

A Torbay councillor whose objections to the choice of the bay’s new Mayor caused a stormy council meeting to be halted for half an hour has stepped down from his ‘champion’ role.

Cllr Jermaine Atiya-Alla (Lib Dem, Ellacombe) had already described new Mayor Cllr Hazel Foster (Con, Wellswood) as an ‘undesirable character’ when he then went further and caused the meeting of the full council to be adjourned for tempers to cool.

Council leader David Thomas (Con, Preston) was critical of what he called ‘playground politics’ during the meeting.

Now Cllr Atiya-Alla has resigned from his role as the council’s racial equality and inclusion member champion.

Torbay’s first black elected council member, he said the choice of Cllr Foster for the civic role had been ‘the final straw’.

During the full council meeting last week he objected to the choice, saying the Conservative administration of the council was ‘normalising’ racism, bullying and discrimination. He was referring to previous incidents in which Cllr Foster was found to have bullied a council officer, and then in a separate incident appeared to draw attention to the race of Torquay police officers in a social media post.

The latter was logged by police as a potential ‘hate incident’ and Cllr Foster deleted the post.

Announcing his resignation from his role, Cllr Atiya-Alla said it had been an honour to chair the Torbay Racism Review Panel, which he saw as the first step towards Torbay Council addressing the issues of racism and discrimination.

However, he added: “Since the current administration took control of the council in 2023, there has been no further progress. My calls on the leader to continue the important work of the Torbay Race Review have fallen on deaf ears, and I have questioned whether my appointment to the member champion role was to affect genuine change or mere tokenism.”

He said the appointment of Cllr Foster was the ‘final straw’, and added: “I now believe that Torbay Council is going backwards from the progress that the Torbay Race Review made in tackling racism and discrimination.

“It is telling that for two years in a row, councillors have been silenced at the Annual Council Meeting when speaking on racism. To hear this described by the leader of the council as ‘playground politics’ is disgraceful.

“I no longer have confidence that this administration takes seriously the issues of tackling racism and discrimination.”

After the interrupted meeting Cllr Foster said she believed her role as civic mayor was to represent everyone in Torbay regardless of their political views and opinions.

She said: “This is a civic role, and it’s non-political. I see my role as just to engage and support everybody, regardless of their political party.”

Cllr Foster is a businesswoman, a former Lord Mayor of Coventry and race-winning amateur jockey. She has been a Torbay councillor since 2019. She said she was honoured to have been given the role of Mayor and looked forward to representing Torbay.

Her chosen charities for the year will raise funds for survivors of domestic and sexual violence as well as young adults with learning disabilities. Her consort will be her husband Kevin Foster, the former Conservative MP for Torbay.