Minutes:
“Good Morning Fellow Councillors, Officers and Members of the Public.
Strange times call for strange responses. We will all do as best as we can to make this a productive and successful meet using Skype business.
I will shortly invite my fellow Councillors on the Committee to confirm they can hear the meeting and preferably see it too. I will then ask the appropriate Committee Officer to confirm that the live stream of this meeting is active. The purpose of both of these actions is to ensure that we meet the legal requirements for remote meetings of Councils.
Following this, I will move through the agenda for the meeting. This agenda is available on line at the Council’s website following the links to ‘Council and Democracy’, ‘Committees’ and then the Planning Policy & Local Plan Committee. A link to the live stream of the meeting is also available from there and in the next few days there will be a copy of the recording of the meeting.
My fellow Councillors on the Committee are being asked to keep their video feed on during the entire meeting. Officers of the Council and Councillors who are not on the Committee are respectfully asked to keep their video feed off while they are not contributing to the meeting. Everyone is asked to mute their microphone unless they are contributing. When contributing everyone is asked to say their name so that those listening in can follow who has said what.
At relevant times during the meeting I will check that Members of the Committee can hear the meeting, and preferably see it too. I would ask that where possible Members of the Committee contribute at those times so that we only have one person talking at a time. If a Member of the Committee does need to contribute at other times, for instance to declare an interest not already declared, then they should alert me as Chairman by interrupting briefly and then allowing me to invite them to make their point. Something like ‘Chairman, it’s Councillor XXX, I wish to make a point’ will be sufficient.
As we move between items on the agenda, if there are members of the public who are to be invited to speak on the next item, I will pause after the end of the one item and before starting the next one. I will ask the Committee Officer to confirm if we have the members of the public invited in so that, when ready, they can make their contribution. Once this is confirmed I will start the item concerned. The same will apply to Councillors who are not members of the Committee and who are to contribute.
For the purposes of managing the meeting I will ask the Committee Officer to confirm that all members of the public who no longer have a contribution still to make under our public participation schemes have either left the meeting or will be removed. I will await that confirmation before moving on. They may continue to watch the live stream of the proceedings.
At the end of each item I will either, move a motion and ask for it to be seconded, or I will ask someone to propose and second a motion if one has not already been proposed. I will then ask each Councillor on the Committee in turn to identify how they vote on that motion. The Minutes will only record the overall decision of the Committee unless a recorded vote is requested in accordance with the normal rules.
So, in thanking you for your patience as I went through these arrangements for the meeting, I now intend to start by inviting my fellow Councillors on the Committee to confirm in turn they can hear the meeting and preferably see it too.”