Denying access to Council correspondence. Councillors had been denied sight of Council correspondence by the previous Chairman (Cllr Merricks) on the grounds that it was addressed to the Clerk, not Councillors. In November 2007, it was decided that the correspondence file would once again be open to scrutiny by Councillors and a policy was agreed on what correspondence would be copied or notified to councillors.

Preventing amendments to Council Minutes. The Chairman (Cllr Merricks) refused to allow amendments to the minutes to be put to the Council by Cllr Comotto without being seconded before being read out. In other words, she required other councillors to second the amendments before they knew what they were! She imposed this illegal procedure, she said, in case "members of the public did not understand" the amendments. One of the amendments noted a challenge put to Cllr Sutton that he had breached the Code of Conduct by failing to declare an interest in a grant application made to the Council by his wife on behalf of Winchelsea Beach Community Association.

Attempting to disenfranchise councillors. In October 2004, the Clerk resigned suddenly during a meeting. The next day, 10 councillors informed the Sussex Association of Local Councils (SALC) that they had resigned, apparently in the belief that the District Council could and would remove Cllr Comotto from office. Six councillors withdrew their resignations when they discovered that the District Council did not have this power. The Clerk also apparently withdrew his resignation. However, he refused to attend any Council meetings for several months (but was kept on full pay) and his place was taken by a temporary Clerk sent by SALC, Mrs Christine Swann. In addition to helping produce a budget in secret (see above), Mrs Swann proposed, at the February 2005 meeting that the Council consider changing its working arrangements. One option was to delegate all its powers to committees. Appropriate councillors would be elected to these committees and, as regards which councillors would be appropriate, Mrs Swann stated "I think you know what I mean". The proposal was clearly aimed at removing the ability of at least one elected councillor to participate in decision-making by the Council. The Council voted against this proposal.

Restricting Public Questions. From about this date, the Council insisted that, during the special Public Questions session before a council meeting begins, members of the public restrict themselves to items on the agenda. Previously, agendas had simply said "Public questions and Council response", with no restrictions imposed. When it was proposed to once again allow public questions on any subject, the Chairman argued that the Council was limited by Standing Order 70. However, this allows the Chairman to adjourn a meeting so that members of the public may address a council on an issue being discussed. It does not apply to the Public Questions session before the meeting is adjourned and seems to be intended to allow members of the public to contribute to specific items of council business (and not just pose questions on).