A TOWN council has resolved to sort out its communication problems after going through a “rocky stage”.

Councillor John Buckley told the latest Whitchurch Town Council meeting: “The town council has gone through a bit of a rocky stage, and communications have been raised as something that needs improvement, and now is the time to do it, particularly when we have a 50 per cent change in councillors.”

As reported in The Gazette, four councillors resigned last year, one of whom cited “unacceptable communications” as a reason for standing down. All said they felt there had been a “lack of support”.

In May, former Mayor John Clark, who was chairing the council when the resignations occurred, stood down after 31 years as a councillor.

It is still unclear exactly what went wrong although three of the four councillors who resigned have publicly said that their departures were not influenced in any way by the actions of Cllr Clark.

Cllr Buckley told councillors at their July meeting that the council now needs to “improve trust and confidence in ourselves from the community.”

He added: “The main point is to create a team to promote the town council and what it does in a very positive light.”

Cllr Buckley suggested the council makes better use of social networking sites to communicate with residents, and publish details of meetings on its website “in a clear, simple way, not like minutes.”

It was agreed that he would chair a group to look into communications.