Civic awards, is something amiss?

21st APRIL 2026

Last year saw the Ross-on-Wye Civic Awards given out, the Organisation Award going to The Hub, and the Individual Award going to - hang on, there was no individual award!

Many people in the town nominated Milly Boylan for the Individual Award, as the founding and driving force behind At The Hub.

Was she snubbed, after her incredible efforts, and were the nominations of the people of Ross-on-Wye blanked? It would be highly likely that nominations for the individual award for Milly to have outnumbered those of the organisation itself?

Now it seems, whenever the Individual Award and Organisation award are discussed in meetings that Cllr Ed O’Driscoll who presented the award to The Hub seems to have no real recollection of there ever being two awards, leading people to believe you could nominate an Organisation or an Individual, but only one award would be chosen. You could speculate this might cover tracks as to why two awards weren’t presented in 2025.

Cllr Ed O’Driscoll is Chair of the Community, Markets and Tourism Sub-Committee that came up with the awards, so he should know how many are given out, because he championed them into existence. Yes, he should know, but does he?

Well… it is easy to check… because Cllr Ed O’Driscoll was also the driving force behind formalising the process for the awards, and what happens as in all council operations like this, is a Policy is drawn up - because the council wouldn’t want any confusion would it?

Contrary to any assertion that there only ever was going to be one Civic Award, the policy says different, the policy adopted in a meeting that Cllr O’Driscoll chaired.

The policy says:

"AWARDS will be made in ONE OR MORE of the following categories each year, with no more than one award in each category"

(Hardly the language of a policy that only hands out one award?)

It goes on to say:

• Individual Award - An individual who lives or has a local connection to Ross-on-Wye and has made a significant contribution to the residents of Ross-on-Wye throughout voluntary effort, achieving success or overcoming particular difficulties.

• Organisation Award- An organisation based in Ross-on-Wye, which has made a significant contribution to the residents of Ross-on-Wye above and beyond the call of duty, achieved local success or overcome particular difficulties.

(Here’s a link to the Civic Award Policy for you to read)

Why isn’t anyone simply admitting that there are two awards - after all, nominations are collected for both. If the policy was clear there will only be one award, fair enough, but it absolutely does NOT state that - The bold bit above says it all. Maybe Cllr Ed O’Driscoll could read his own policy and get his facts straight?

For the consipiracy theorists…

For many people in Ross, it seemed very odd that Milly Boylan didn’t get an individual award (or for that matter, anyone else).

Cllr Milly Boylan has already had to suffer Cllr Chris Bartrum using his newspaper column in the Ross Gazette to talk her down. Questions are raised over the level of support from Ross Community Development Trust towards At The Hub, and Ross CDT has a key figure who is Cllr Chris Bartrum’s wife. As is the case in Ross, many people are involved in many things. What if any councillor could have had views on whether Town Council support should continue for At The Hub, because of their opinion of her use of social media, something clearly unrelated - what is clear is that Cllr Boylan is very successful in using social media to communicate issues to those she represents.

This year...

Anyway, now that it’s all cleared up, it seems safe to expect that Cllr O’Driscoll might be awarding just one award this year too - if he does, would that be because he doesn’t know the policy he was instrumental in creating, or would it be to keep covering tracks after last year?

Who knows.

It would be great to see both awards awarded this year though, as there are so many deserving recipients, but it’s unlikely.

One indvidual the people of Ross might feel worthy of receiving an award would be Sandra Brown, who is a machine in human form when it comes to litter picking, all driven out of an absolute love for the town of Ross-on-Wye.

Political control?

There have been frustrations voiced by councillors about political control being exercised by the Lib Dem majority that Cllrs O’Driscoll and Bartrum belong to - most recently, overturning progress made on a new, fairer way to elect the town’s Mayor, which would also happen to limit the ability for the appointment to be politically controlled by a majority.

Under the current majority Liberal Democrat led Town Council, it is also noted that the Management Committee setup is unusual compared to other councils, and Cllr Julian Utting, another Lib Dem councillor presides as Chair over all the meetings of that Management Committee, which is most of the main council meetings - plus, under the current Lib Dem majority, nobody outside of the Lib Dems has been voted into chairing any sub-committee at all. Perhaps the majority feel one of their own is always best for the job?

By the time you read this, a new Mayor will be announced. What’s the betting the person elected comes from the majority party?

Deputy Mayor Sarah Freer has mentioned she doesn't want the role of Mayor, so it looks like there is no accepted ascendency this year, and councillors will vote a new Mayor in.