‘Intimidating’ council meetings can’t give residents ‘satisfactory experience’

Supplementary questions at full council meetings were restored in May – one year after councillors sparked anger after removing them.

Cllr Bowden (LAB – Birchwood) was pressed on the issue during the leader’s forum at St Werburgh’s Development Centre on Monday.

A resident, who raised concerns over the initial decision to remove them, asked whether there would be any consideration to run full council meetings in a ‘more engaging way’.

She also highlighted the importance of giving residents the chance to air their concerns and asked if full council meetings could be held in locations away from the Town Hall.

Cllr Bowden said rules of debate have to be set out ‘or people abuse them’.

But he says accessing democracy by coming to a full council meeting ‘can’t be a very satisfactory experience for people’.

He also believes the meetings are ‘quite intimidating’ for the public.

“The chamber is full with councillors most of the time and senior officers – that doesn’t give a great deal of public access,” he added.

“A council meeting, of course, is not a public meeting, it is just a meeting that is held in public.

“The supplementary question (decision) was a response by the council’s constitution sub-committee to the behaviour of some people, who came to those meetings and didn’t accept the rules as they were set out and didn’t accept the authority in there, in terms of running those meetings.

“It was an untenable situation. It has been restored now.”

The council had been under public and political pressure over the removal of the extra question since campaigner Richard Buttrey was refused an additional question in June last year.

Councillors backed amendments to the constitution, as recommended by the constitution sub-committee, during the authority’s annual meeting in May.