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22
Jun 2021
Harrogate councillor pays £2,000 of his own cash to cover cost of live streaming
A Harrogate councillor has agreed to pay more than £2,000 of his own cash to cover the cost of live streaming meetings after last year ripping up a cheque when the idea was rejected.
Liberal Democrat Cllr Chris Aldred first put forward the idea to livestream in-person Harrogate Borough Council meetings in January 2020 but it was rejected because of claims that the “tens of thousands of pounds” needed to buy the equipment would have been too expensive.
At the time, the exact quoted costs were never made public although Cllr Aldred said they were “not excessive” as he offered to pay for the equipment himself and tore up a cheque in front of other council members when his failed proposal was put to bed.
More than a year on, and after the coronavirus pandemic forced the live streaming of both remote and in-person meetings, Cllr Aldred this month faced calls from Conservative council leader Richard Cooper to follow up on his offer of payment “as a matter of honour”.
Read More:
- Harrogate council to continue live streaming meetings
- ‘Mistake’ to return to in-person meetings, says council leader
Speaking at a meeting of the council’s general purposes committee last Thursday, Cllr Cooper said:
At Thursday’s meeting, councillor Aldred presented a cheque for £2,180 – the actual cost of live streaming equipment which was installed last month and is now to become a permanent feature of meetings.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Cllr Aldred later said he was happy to pay the money and that he had made a number of requests for all meetings to be livestreamed, publicised and archived, and that councillors are offered training for presentation skills.
He said:
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