MK Council typo is to blame for confusion over councillors' '˜seaside trip' grants

Each MK councillor has £1,000 to give away each year to a worthy ward-based cause.

The list of donations, printed this month, included two generous payments to Fenny Stratford Residents Association. One was for £300 from councillor Mohammed Khan and the other was for £500 from councilor Elaine Wales.

Both stated the cash paid for a “day trip” to the seaside for Fenny Stratford Resdients Association.

But residents’ association chair Rosemary Smith was surprised to say the least.

“We’ve never received a penny from either of these councillors and we’ve certainly never been on a day trip to the seaside,” she said.

“If we had this kind of money we wouldn’t spend it on kiss me quick hats and jaunts to the seaside. We’d plough it into the homeless shelter we’re setting up at St George’s Community Centre to help people in bletchley and Fenny Stratford who are living off the streets.”

The councillors’ grants actually went to the Fenny Stratford and Bletchley Bangladeshi Residents’ Association to pay for a day trip to Bournemouth.

A “typo” was to blame for the misunderstanding in the Milton Keynes Council document, say the councillors.

But now Elaine Wales, who donated £500 to the day trip, has pledged to support the George Street homeless shelter regardless.