A meeting to question candidates in next week’s local authority election in Onchan is to take place on Tuesday.

But the man who’s chairing it has pleaded with people who go not to talk about what he describes as the ’goings on’ in the authority.

Captain of the Parish Peter Kelly has received a petition signed by 12 residents calling for a meeting with the eight candidates for the seven seats on the board of Onchan Commissioners.

Mr Kelly said the petition requests a requisition meeting ’to hear the views and policies of the candidates standing in the forthcoming local election’. He said: ’It is not a meeting to quiz the five members seeking re-election on recent "goings on" within the board.’

Mr Kelly said that three candidates who have not been on the board and have no in-depth knowledge of what has been happening and any questions have to be addressed to all candidates.

He said that enquiries were currently taking place in relation to staffing matters and could not be discussed in public at the moment for legal reasons. In recent weeks, the clerk to the board, Linda Radcliffe, was suspended pending an investigation.

Ms Radcliffe has been in the post since November 2018, having replaced the previous clerk who was sacked in 2017. Michael Morrison’s employment tribunal was settled out of court.

One of the area’s MHKs, Julie Edge, asked for a public meeting about the issue.

In October 2019, James Cherry, who has been a commissioner for three years, resigned.

He cited ’personal attacks’ in a letter to the board shared with Isle of Man Newspapers.

In his letter the board he said: ’I feel that the atmosphere which has been created in recent times in the boardroom has been toxic with members of the board, whom I will not publicly name, aiming personal attacks at myself at board meetings.

’This is further without any prior discussion with me simply uncalled for and does not present the professionalism that the people of Onchan would expect from their representatives.’

The requisition meeting is to take place on Tuesday, July 20, in The Elim Family Centre, Second Avenue, at 7.30pm.

Doors open from 7pm and any interested Onchan resident can attend and ask candidates questions.