2021 – A Positive Beginning as a Labour Councillor
Zoe was elected a Falmouth Town Councillor in May 2021 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. She became one of ten Labour Councillors, the majority political group on Falmouth Town Council. Cllr Jude Robinson had played the role of mother hen/procedural mentor throughout the campaign for election, helping with official forms, providing leaflets and maps of streets to canvass, etc. She not only chaired the local Labour Party but had previously sat on Falmouth Town Council and on the earlier Kerrier District Council.
Cllr Robinson continued in a similar role once they were elected, advising the new Town Councillors what to do and how to do it, to the extent that they initially had little directly to do with FTC officers. This was during Covid lockdown, so at first they didn’t even meet in person. They were inducted with two weeks’ worth of evening Zoom training through FTC.
When it came to Council procedures, however, Zoe felt she was not alone in barely understanding what was happening much of the time. The Labour Councillors also had a dedicated WhatsApp chat, where they could ask questions, share news and invitations, discuss Council matters informally and arrange shared transport for events.
Zoe knew there were areas in which she was likely to need support, as local government bureaucracy was particularly alien and uncomfortable for her middle-aged, creative, grassroots, radical, media-artist/philosopher brain. She made sure her colleagues knew that while there were some things her neurodiversity made her particularly good at – such as research, innovative ideas and hyperfocus on areas of interest including social justice, culture and ecology – there were other things she was less good at, such as admin, form-filling, scheduling, consistency, self-advancement and bureaucratic procedure.
The Labour group shared this kind of information about themselves, along with some of their family and political histories, in their WhatsApp group, Zoom meetings and occasional pub gatherings as lockdown eased during that first year. Zoe trusted that they shared key values of fairness, social justice and inclusive mutuality, as set out in Labour Party rules and emerging through the policies for FTC they were discussing and agreeing.
It felt like a warm and mutually supportive group. Zoe was particularly reassured to learn that another Councillor with invisible disabilities, as well as environmental and social justice concerns similar to her own, was being fast-tracked to the Deputy Mayoral role. As she seemed nice and sensible, Zoe was happy to go along with that.
Her understanding at that stage was that, if and when she needed additional support, she would be able to request it, receive a reasonable response, and there would be a clear, straightforward process to assess her needs and agree what form any accessibility help would take.
2021-22 – Finding Her Feet
Zoe cannot recall being offered any disability access support, needs assessment or diversity training, nor any mention of neurodiversity mentorship or other reasonable adjustments to enable her equal participation as a Councillor, either through the Labour Party or Falmouth Town Council.
As they were initially collaborating well to develop shared political priorities as a Labour-majority Council, Zoe initially felt no need for individual accessibility support. She began finding her way as a new Councillor with a sense of confidence that she, her particular needs and her political proposals would continue to be heard, respected and integrated equally with those of her fellow Labour Councillors, at the very least, and that they would support her if she needed help from elsewhere.
Zoe recalls her surprise when, a matter of weeks after their election in May 2021, Cllr Robinson offered her the chair of a Council environmental committee. She felt honoured, trusted and entirely overwhelmed by the prospect.
She explained that, for her to take on such a responsible role, she would need to have observed existing Chairs in action for longer; to have undertaken specific training in how to chair a Council committee; and, especially given her ADHD, to have targeted accessibility support in place to help with the administrative side of such a responsible role. She therefore requested that the honour of chairing a committee be deferred for a year or so, until she had found her feet.
In the meantime, Zoe made every effort to understand how the Council worked, who chaired the committees, how Council decisions were made, and how officers were enabled to make some things happen as ‘best practice’ with public money while other things required a Council vote. Every so often, resolutions were proposed in committees and quite often they were passed, but nobody talked to Zoe about proposing resolutions herself or how they were framed. She assumed this opportunity would come with time and experience, and that when the time came she would be able to ask for and receive support.
2022 – Trying to Turn Politics into Action
Eventually, the time came. Zoe asked Cllr Robinson for help to bring forward practical proposals emerging from reports by the Town Council’s environment officer, Tessa Marie, to the Van Dwellers working group, which Zoe had been running with their ward’s new Labour Cornwall Councillor, Laurie Magowan.
See Zoe’s account entitled ‘Van Dwellers’ for more detail of this story.
Explore the Van Dwellers chapter →
Cllr Robinson invited Cllr Magowan to make a presentation to FTC’s Finance and General Purposes Committee, but offered them no direction on framing or formulating a motion for FTC. When Zoe asked directly for such support, she says she received no response.
After their presentation, Cllr Magowan went on to work with Cllr Jayne Kirkham to formulate a motion to Cornwall Council to provide low-rent ‘meanwhile park-ups’ for local people.
Zoe was still unsure how to formulate a proposal for action by Falmouth Town Council, and nobody had told her how. Her tentative approaches to FTC staff to sketch out a potential business plan for an Aire were referred back to Cllr Robinson, who would then dismiss them a priori as ‘too expensive’ or similar.
The difficulties Zoe encountered trying to turn the Council’s progressive ambitions into practical action weren’t limited to housing. During her time as a Councillor she worked across environmental, social and community issues, including the Motion for the Ocean and a series of community Green, Tree and Blue Days.
Explore Progressive Local Politics →
2022-23 – Asking for Reasonable Adjustments
Eventually, Zoe approached Cllr Robinson specifically to ask for help as a neurodiverse new Councillor struggling to understand how decisions were being made, what evidence the Council was able to hear, and how to bring a proposal forward.
Cllr Robinson had often put herself forward as keen and able to offer Zoe support, so Zoe began by setting out some of the ways she had been struggling with how things worked on the Council, and the emotional difficulties she had been facing linked to her ADHD.
Zoe feels that perhaps she did not express this very well because, to her dismay, rather than listening and responding, Cllr Robinson swiftly became defensive, then angry, then left.
To her credit, some days later Cllr Robinson apologised, but Zoe had lost trust in her ability to positively mentor her as an ADHD Councillor from that point.
Zoe felt that whatever evidence she had hoped to present, and whatever proposals for progressive policy she had hoped to develop for FTC to vote on, were not being given time or consideration. Neither Cllr Robinson nor Cllr Eva supported her, in Zoe’s view, as a new and neurodiverse Town Councillor attempting her first forays into policy.
Then came what Zoe regarded as malicious misrepresentations of both her and her policy proposals in the media.
Bewildered by what she saw as Cllr Robinson using her greater experience and confidence with Council procedures, language and methods to limit the scope of democratic debate and the evidence being reviewed, alongside her refusal to engage constructively with Zoe on matters of disability inclusion and neurodiversity, Zoe did not feel able to accept offers of training made by Cllr Robinson — at least, not before FTC officers and Councillors had received sufficient neurodiversity training to ensure that someone could offer unbiased, non-politicised ADHD mentorship.
Zoe was beginning to realise that a disability needs assessment should have been offered by Falmouth Town Council and reasonable adjustments negotiated, rather than new Councillors such as the Mayor and Zoe being left largely in the hands of a political group leader acting as the primary Council mediator and mentor from the outset.
Having lost confidence in the informal support available within the Labour group, Zoe began looking elsewhere within the Council for more formal help. Her next step was to approach Cllr Kirstie Edwards, who had by then become Mayor and was also FTC’s Disability Champion.
Seeking Formal Support from the Mayor
Zoe had previously tried to speak to Cllr Edwards in person about some of the difficulties she was experiencing, feeling that these matters were better discussed face-to-face than in writing. Cllr Edwards was extremely busy, however, and those conversations generally did not happen.
Zoe was aware that Cllr Edwards had experienced personal problems and so avoided disturbing her where possible. She therefore waited until after Cllr Edwards’s Mayor-making before writing to her formally in her role as FTC’s Disability Champion, asking for help to obtain reasonable adjustments to improve the accessibility of Council procedures, logistics and decision-making processes. Zoe had recently been reading about needs assessments and reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010.
Cllr Edwards had previously apologised to Zoe personally for allowing Cllr Robinson to use her name in manoeuvres to remove Zoe from a committee. Zoe was further reassured when, on taking office, Mayor Edwards made clear her intention to prioritise civility, respect and the inclusion of all as equals within the Council.
In this context, Zoe had anticipated at the very least a friendly, professional and/or encouraging response. She was therefore upset and shocked when she felt Cllr Edwards profoundly misunderstood her call for help and treated it as an attack.
Zoe says she tried to clarify what she meant but did not feel heard. She found the responses to her request so defensive, opaque and/or bureaucratic that, if intended to be constructive, they simply did not make sense to her.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Falmouth Town Council
Zoe continued to believe that Falmouth Town Council needed an effective EDI policy, with reasonable adjustments properly assessed and administered independently. She had learned, however, that the Mayor could not or would not help with this at that time.
She therefore asked the Town Clerk, Mark Williams, for help in obtaining reasonable adjustments. Again, Zoe found the response bureaucratic and difficult to comprehend and, as far as she could identify, it offered none of the substantive elements of the support she had requested. Some of the emails are attached.
There were, however, hints of progress. Procuring neurodiversity training for Council officers would be positive. In the meantime, however, Zoe felt increasingly locked out.
August 2023 – Tall Ships Falmouth: A Turning Point
The Tall Ships Race in August 2023 became a significant turning point. After Zoe raised concerns about the management, safety and accessibility of the event, a series of Code of Conduct complaints were made against her by Council colleagues. The complaints, and the restrictions and disputes that followed, would occupy much of the remainder of her time as a councillor.
The events surrounding Tall Ships are explored in detail in a separate chapter.
Explore the Tall Ships chapter →
September 2023 – Restrictions and Increasing Isolation
In September 2023, Town Clerk Mark Williams instructed Zoe not to communicate with other Council officers until the multiple complaints against her had been resolved. Zoe felt this further restricted her already limited ability to serve as a disabled Councillor while adding considerably to her stress.
Zoe says she received no support from FTC to make the rules and remits, schedules and logistics of the many Council-linked meetings through which governance occurred more accessible to her and others who might be interested.
At times, Zoe understood Mark Williams to be suggesting that gestures of political support from fellow Councillors amounted to a ‘reasonable adjustment’ in themselves. Zoe considered this to be an ableist approach.
There was also, in Zoe’s view, a lack of clarity about which ‘external bodies’ meetings a Councillor could and could not attend as an observer when not attending as an FTC representative.
Zoe had initially represented FTC on several external bodies, but resigned from the Community Area Panel after repeatedly not receiving the logistical information in time to attend its meetings. She also stepped down from the Fair-Trade Committee, although for a different reason: she felt her work there was complete after opening up what she regarded as a very fertile link with the sustainability team and students at the Cornwall universities above Penryn.
Late 2023 – Seeking Outside Support
In late 2023, Zoe tried to find support from Disability Cornwall. After hearing her concerns, the officer appointed to her went to speak to Cllr Edwards to hear her perspective and received from the Town Clerk much the same response he had sent to Zoe – which Zoe felt purported to offer adjustments without actually providing them.
The officer learned from them of the multiple Code of Conduct complaints outstanding against Zoe and subsequently declined to support her further until those complaints were resolved.
2024 – Police Complaint and Investigation
By the beginning of 2024, the difficulties Zoe was experiencing within the Council had extended beyond internal complaints and disputes. What followed was a nine-month police investigation which Zoe describes as having a significant impact on her wellbeing, her reputation and her ability to continue carrying out her role as a councillor.
At New Year, Zoe received a call from Devon and Cornwall Police informing her that the Mayor, Cllr Kirstie Edwards, had reported her for alleged stalking and harassment. The allegations included occasions on which Zoe had encountered Cllr Edwards at a music festival and at a university conference.
Zoe was particularly troubled by the involvement of Town Clerk Mark Williams, who she says signed as a witness to a 13-page report concerning events at which, according to Zoe, he had not himself been present.
During the investigation, Zoe describes the experience of being investigated for stalking and harassment while already dealing with Code of Conduct complaints, difficulties obtaining reasonable adjustments and increasing isolation within the Council as deeply distressing.
Zoe disputed the allegations throughout. She did not consider her encounters with a Council colleague at public events to constitute stalking or harassment, and felt frustrated that this had developed into such a lengthy police investigation.
After nine months, the investigation ended with no further action due to a lack of evidence.
For Zoe, however, the end of the investigation did not undo its impact. She describes the nine months as a period of police harassment, and believes the investigation formed part of a much wider experience of being increasingly isolated and challenged during the latter part of her councillorship.
The timing was particularly significant to Zoe. Her relationship with Cllr Edwards had deteriorated after Zoe approached her, in her role as FTC’s Disability Champion, seeking help to obtain reasonable adjustments. Zoe had subsequently faced Code of Conduct complaints and restrictions on her ability to communicate with Council officers. Against that background, the police complaint became another significant element of what Zoe experienced as an escalating pattern of exclusion after seeking disability support.
2024-2025 – Continuing Despite Growing Challenges
The cumulative effect of these experiences made it increasingly difficult for Zoe to carry out the role in the way she believed residents deserved. Alongside the difficulties obtaining reasonable adjustments, Zoe describes disruption to her ability to work with Council staff other than the Town Clerk through the Labour-led Staffing Committee; increasing ostracism and what she experienced as public humiliation in Full Council meetings; repeated front-page coverage in the local press which she regarded as misleading; and the prolonged impact of the complaints and police investigation.
Despite this, Zoe continued trying to fulfil the responsibilities entrusted to her by the people who had elected her. She sought support, continued working on behalf of residents and tried to find ways of making the role sustainable.
By the end of her term, however, the cumulative impact on her health, wellbeing and ability to carry out the role had become significant. Although encouraged by members of the community and the Green Party to stand again, Zoe decided not to seek re-election when her term ended in May 2025.