Two controversial councillors are shortly to receive an overwhelming message from readers of the Burton Mail.

Thousands of voting forms have been sent back to the paper after it decided to ask the public what they felt about district councillors Dennis Heptonstall and Penny Perry… dubbed “Den and Pen”.

The officials – him council leader and her his deputy – abandoned their civic duties for 10 weeks last year to take a camper van tour of Europe without their respective families and came back to their positions of responsibility as if nothing had happened.

The authority claimed it had no warning of their departure – and the pair have now been reunited on the county council’s powerful new health scrutiny committee.

The Burton Mail believes the couple are not fit to hold public office – and has asked readers to back their argument.

Pic courtesy of Burton Mail

Coun Heptonstall and Coun Perry are still on the council. He was appointed chair of the health scrutiny panel at Staffordshire County Council and shortly afterwards, Coun Perry became the member for Burton-on-Trent on the same panel.

Their conduct has caught the imagination of the readers of the Mail, who are filling a Den and Pen posting box at the Mail’s HQ three times a day.

Coun Heptonstall had even launched a foul-mouthed diatribe on a Burton Mail journalist at a charity football match – before being shamed into silence and led away by a senior council officer.

And a pensioner is even planning to launch his own petition to express his “disgust” at their appointment to the health committee.

Editor Paul Hazeldine said: “It’s the best reader response we’ve ever had for anything. They realise it’s not a political issue but a moral one.

“The poll has only been going a week and we have had thousands of forms returned. Only a handful support the councillors.”

The last coupon was printed on Saturday and the votes will be counted this Friday for a story revealing the total – and the paper’s next move – on Monday.

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