WATCH: Dancing councillor shuffles out of role after spending too much time in Jersey

Monday 11 March 2019

A UK district councillor is making quicksteps out of his role after being accused of letting his council work pile up while he waltzed off to Jersey to run a tea dance club.

Mid Devon councillor for Cullompton North, Karl Busch (54), made the announcement that he wouldn’t be running for election again last week.

It came after it was revealed that the Conservative had only met the legal minimum of one council meeting every six months, spending 75% of his time 200 miles away running dance events in St. John Parish Hall.

Pictured: Mr Busch's tea dance website.

The community venture is run every Monday from the country parish at a cost of £4 to £6, and aims to boost social inclusion among the over 50s, while also promoting physical activity.

Describing the club on his website, Mr Busch wrote: “We have a common interest in meeting up, having afternoon tea cake and sandwiches a chat laugh and dance if you would like to. We warm up with a line dance, usually 'The Slosh' to a regular pop or disco classic. Then it’s ballroom and sequence to some lovely music.

“Through our success we are looking to support other parishes to do the same anywhere in Jersey, Devon and Cornwall and the Southwest of the UK.”

But while his intentions may have been good, this was not enough to placate his colleagues – one of whom said she had been picking up the slack in his absence.

 Pictured: St. John's Parish Hall, where the tea dance club takes place.

“I commend him on the work that he's doing, but that work isn’t carrying out the councillor role,” Councillor Nikki Woollatt said at a council meeting last week.

“He doesn't even have a telephone number published for his constituents to contact him on, but he does have a telephone number published for his tea dance clients… I've noticed in the last couple of years how much my casework has increased since his absence.”

Another councillor went so far as to suggest his microphone button for speaking at council meetings had rusted up, as it had gone so long unused.

Mr Busch agreed, but went on to a defend his record, which included helping ward members “with respect to benefit problems and debt problems” with his “financial services expertise”.

Video: Mr Busch at a Jersey tea dance in November last year.

“He added: “I'm in the process of forming a community interest company and the focus of that is to address social isolation and inactivity in people over the age of 50. My project, Tea Dance Club, is a community interest project and if anyone has any questions as to what Karl Bush has been doing over the last two years, they only need to look at that.” 

While councillors are not paid a salary, they are entitled to allowances – of which Mr Busch claimed £8,639.55 between 2017 and 2018.

When challenged over whether he was giving taxpayers value for money, he remained firm, stating: “The work I’m doing directly benefits Mid Devon and my legacy is that my ward will benefit from my work for years to come.” 

Nonetheless, giving in to the pressure from his colleagues, he agreed not to run in May’s election: “I will not be standing again in the next election, but I’m proud of the work that I’m achieving.”