Agenda item

To consider and respond to the motion.

Cabinet considered the following motion which had been moved by Councillor S McGrory and seconded by Councillor Penny Butterill at the Council meeting on 17^th July 2014 and referred to Cabinet for consideration:

            “The Council expresses dissatisfaction that the Southern PlanningCommittee, notforthefirsttime, wasdisplaced fromits establishedmeetingroom which hadbeenbookeda yearin advance.Insteadit hadto usetheLibrarywithno soundsystemand delayedIT.Thiswasto makewayforan appealhearing which could and should have beenaccommodated elsewhere.

            If aCouncilcommitteeis bookedfor aspecificvenue, under nocircumstances shouldit berelocatedelsewhereunless theroom ismadeunavailableby an emergencysuch as afire”.

Details of the venuesfor all ofthe Council’s public meetings were posted on the Council’s websiteand are includedon anotice displayed onvarious Councilnotice boards.

Rule 26.1of the Committee andSub-CommitteeProcedural Rules provided that there would be a presumptionagainstalterations tothe date,timeand venueformeetings. However, there would be occasions when it would be necessaryto relocate venues, for example where rooms were required for elections preparation or to accommodate the current Local Plan examination hearing. In such circumstances, the DemocraticServices Officers would informMembers as soonaspossible, givingthe reasonsfor the change.

Intheexample referredto inthe motion, the reasonfor the change inthe venue of the SouthernPlanningCommitteemeetingwas thata PlanningInquiryhad been scheduled totakeplaceovera number of days and the roomwouldnot have beenavailable intime for the Committee meetingto takeplacethere.

It was felt that thewordingof the motion,ifaccepted, would createinflexibility froman operationalperspective and that the existingarrangements were sufficient to address the matters referred to in themotion. However, it was important for officers to provide members with an explanation for any changes to meeting arrangements and the Chief Executive was asked to reinforce this message to officers.

Councillor B Murphy spoke on the motion in the absence of Councillor McGrory.

RESOLVED

That no further action be taken in response to the motion.