A bid to make the webcasting of all council meetings mandatory has been rejected over concerns of delays and its “control” on the agenda.

Clr. Joshua Beynon had put forward a Notice of Motion that all meetings be webcast, including planning delegations and standards hearings.

He told members of the democratic services committee on Thursday, February 7 that “when a meeting isn’t webcast it should be made clear why it isn’t being webcast and that should be in the minutes.”

Head of legal services Claire Incledon said that between April 2018 and January 2019 there were 91 council meetings covered by committee services and just three were not webcast.

A recent services overview and scrutiny was also not webcast due to technical difficulties.

Clr. Di Clements said “with the best will in the world” there might be issues stopping a webcast and delaying a meeting -if broadcast was mandatory – could mean a backlog.

“We could fall into a position that if we’re not on a public webcast we’re not able to do anything. To me the webcasting is incidental to what we are doing today, it is not part and parcel of what we do as a council.

Clr. Jamie Adams and Mrs. Incledon were opposed to Clr. Beynon’s proposal that matters held in private will be recorded but not broadcast.

Clr. Vic Dennis said he was disappointed in the report to committee adding that webcasting was about the council’s “reputation.”

Councillors voted not to adopt the notice of motion but added that council is to take all reasonable steps to webcast meetings and any reasons why it was not possible are recorded in the minutes.