Cost for leisure centre meeting 'around £1,200'
A physical meeting in a leisure centre has cost Lichfield District Council around £1,200, it has been revealed.
The authority held its annual meeting – required by law – on Tuesday at Burntwood Leisure Centre.
Usually full council meetings take place in the main chamber at the authority’s Frog Lane headquarters, but the move into a larger sports hall enabled elected members, council staff and public attendees to socially distance.
Until May 7, local authorities were allowed by Government to hold all meetings remotely as part of special measures to control the spread of coronavirus. These measures expired earlier this month however and have not been renewed, meaning meetings where key decisions are made have to be held in a physical setting once more.
During the previous year Lichfield District Council has held online meetings which have been live streamed on YouTube. Several of these meetings have attracted more than 150 views – and an Economic Growth. Environment and Development Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting in June 2020, where the city centre masterplan and local plan review were up for discussion, was viewed more than 550 times.
Questions about future plans for broadcasting meetings were raised at Tuesday’s meeting.
Councillor Diane Evans said: “Will the leader, Councillor Pullen, please commit to the production of a report on broadcasting meetings in future at the council, which will include the costs involved?
“He previously has said that this council will be transparent and the virtual meetings have allowed this to happen during the pandemic, via YouTube. This has been successful and has attracted more members of the public to view proceedings.
“It is therefore important this is allowed to continue, in order to comply with his statement.”
Councillor Steven Norman asked: “I appreciate that we are not yet able to meet again in the council chamber, or indeed virtually, but could he tell me what the financial cost of tonight’s meeting, here in the leisure centre, is likely to be compared to a meeting held via Zoom and broadcast on YouTube?
“Could he also take a brief and exploratory report to scrutiny of the likely cost of equipping the council chamber and, separately, the committee room so that these meetings could be seen more widely by our residents which has been the case under the coronavirus restrictions until May 7th?”
Councillor Pullen responded: “I’m grateful that Councillor Evans and Councilor Norman share my enthusiasm for both online meetings and the broadcasting of in-person meetings.
“The cost of meeting here this evening in the leisure centre is around £1,200, whereas hosting this meeting online would not have incurred any additional costs.
“Councillor Evans and Councillor Norman will of course know that we are already broadcasting in-person meetings from the chamber, and we will certainly be looking at finding an even better, longer term solution for broadcasting our meetings.”
