Virtual Full Council agenda published
Canterbury City Council will hold a virtual Full Council meeting on Thursday 7 May at 4pm.
The agenda, which was published this afternoon (Wednesday 29 April), has one main item of business – committee meeting arrangements during the coronavirus pandemic.
Among the recommendations is the potential establishment of a Covid-19 Emergency Committee. If agreed, this would be the committee that deals with nearly all council issues requiring a councillor decision until 31 August 2020 at the earliest.
The exception to this is planning and licensing meetings, which would continue as they are now but held as virtual meetings.
Two options are put forward for membership of the Covid-19 Emergency Committee. The first is for it to have 17 members and be politically balanced; the second option is for all 38 councillors to sit on it.
As much public participation as possible would be retained, but this would be by pre-recorded means with support by council officers.
Councillors will join the Full Council meeting remotely, and will be supported by relevant council officers. It will be chaired by the Lord Mayor, Cllr Terry Westgate, in the same way a normal Full Council would be.
The public will be able to watch the meeting via the council's Youtube channel.
Committee meetings have been suspended since the lockdown restrictions came into place around six weeks ago. The last meeting to take place was the Canterbury Forum on Monday 16 March.
Chief Executive Colin Carmichael said: "A lot of hard work has taken place behind the scenes to get this set up. We have held mock meetings to test the technology and the ability of councillors to take part from home and the public to watch online.
"We can't rule out the odd technical hiccough, of course, but we hope it will run smoothly and that we are able to conduct the business without too many problems.
"As yet, we do not know when traditional committees will be able to return, but there will be decisions that councillors need to take in the coming weeks. It's important we have a system in place that allows this to happen."
Published: 29 April 2020