Councillors have criticised North Yorkshire Council after it confirmed not all meetings will be live streamed online.
North Yorkshire Council replaced the seven district and borough councils, including Harrogate, as well as North Yorkshire County Council on Saturday.
It is the largest council area in England, spanning over 3,000 square miles with most of its meeting taking place at County Hall in Northallerton.
During the covid pandemic, the government passed legislation to allow council business to continue online. Meetings took place on apps such as Microsoft Teams and were live streamed for residents to watch on YouTube.
Since pandemic restrictions were lifted, Harrogate Borough Council continued to live stream all of its meetings whereas North Yorkshire County Council only routinely live streamed executive and full council meetings.
Following a question by a councillor, a senior officer at the new council confirmed in an email that the previous North Yorkshire County Council live streaming arrangement will continue.
County Hall in Northallerton
This means that at the moment, the only chance residents will get to see what is happening in a host of other meetings, including those concerning public health, education and transport, is if they travel to Northallerton.
However, meetings in Harrogate, such as planning committee, licensing committee and area constituency committee, will be streamed using equipment bought by Harrogate Borough Council.
But they will no longer include developments affecting Ripon, Masham and Pateley Bridge as meetings in Harrogate will cover the Harrogate and Knaresborough parliamentary constituency.
The email concludes by saying the new council is reviewing “what is possible and practicable” regarding live streaming meetings in the future.
Three-hour round trip
In some parts of Craven such as Ingleton or Bentham it’s a three-hour round trip to County Hall.
Andy Brown, Green Party councillor for Aire Valley, said residents should not be expected to travel to Northallerton to “watch democracy in action.” He added:
“Working online can save hours of travelling and make the meeting more efficient. It is crazy that I am travelling for 90 minutes to attend meetings that could be done online.
“It is wrong that meetings which could be steamed into the homes of every interested member of the public are not conducted as openly as possible.”
Andy Solloway, Independent councillor for Skipton West and West Craven said:
“The outgoing Craven District Council have been recording meetings for years, and live streaming them, especially decision making ones, would be a good thing for local democracy and for public participation and engagement.”
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Arnold Warneken, Green Party councillor for Ouseburn, also said he was in favour of the council live streaming all meetings:
“Someone should be able to open their laptop in their house and see what the council is up to. Sometimes it’s like watching paint dry but you can have it on in background. That is transparency and engagement.
“The meetings should all be streamed if we’re serious about carbon and the impact we make ourselves. There’s a lot of support for it.”
What the council says
North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for democratic services, Cllr
David Chance, said:
Want an alternative Valentine’s? Some ideas in the Harrogate district“We are committed to ensuring that the new North Yorkshire Council has local
communities at its heart, despite serving such a vast area across the county.“The online streaming of council meetings has been an important way of making sure that access is available as widely as possible to both councillors and members of the public.
“Meetings of full council and the executive will be routinely streamed online, and we will continue to record and broadcast planning and licensing meetings that were previously overseen by district and borough councils.
“We will consider broadcasting or recording other meetings when there is a strong public interest or where there are facilities in place that enable it to be readily done.
“The new council is the third largest in the country, and now oversees services that were previously delivered by eight authorities in North Yorkshire. There are therefore a significant number of meetings each year, which is in the region of 200.
“We are reviewing what is possible and practicable regarding the recording and broadcasting of meetings, taking into account the facilities which are available across the county, the IT and democratic support that is needed as well as investment in IT infrastructure.”
Find it all a little too overhyped and mushy? If you are looking for something different to the dozen red roses and dinner out this Valentine’s week, there are events happening in the Harrogate district that may be an option for you and your loved one.
Whether you’re into the supernatural, a night at the Opera or just an evening of laughter, here are four ideas for an interesting, if less romantic, night out.
My Bloody Valentine – Ouija Event
If you really are anti-Valentine’s and seeking something sinister this year, Paul Forster and Dead Northern’s séance may be an option.
The event will take place on the rooftop of the Yorkshire Hotel in Harrogate on Saturday 11 February, from 7pm – 10pm.
Organisers say guests can expect “a cross between an interactive séance and a psychological spook show”. There will be a Ouija board present at the event – some may even attempt to connect with spirits passed.
Tickets include entry to the event and a hot meal in the intermission.
Guests are invited to bring a personal item with them to add value to their experience.
Ticket prices start at £33.30.
For more information, click here.
Four Weddings and a Murder
Keeping in line with the darker side of love, an immersive murder mystery event, Four Weddings and a Murder, will take place at Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate.
The event will run from 7.30pm – 10.30pm on Friday 24 February.
Guests join a group of friends celebrating a wedding, during which a murder takes place. The audience are invited to help solve the murder before it’s too late.
The night includes a three-course meal. Guests can also upgrade their tickets to include an overnight stay in the hotel with breakfast the following morning.
Tickets for the event start from £51.
Find more information here.
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Royal Opera House Live: The Barber of Seville
On a slightly more romantic note, if culture is what you are looking for this Valentine’s, Everyman Cinema is hosting a live stream of the Royal Opera House’s adaptation of “The Barber of Seville”.
The Everyman Cinema is located in the centre of Harrogate.
The Italian comic opera tells the story of a young girl, Rosina. After falling in love with a mysterious suitor, Rosina must use her cunning wit and disguises to outsmart her calculated guardian.
The live stream will take place on Wednesday 15 February at 6.45pm.
Click here for more information.
Harrogate Theatre: Bouncers
Budding thespians might fancy a trip to the local theatre this Valentine’s. John Godber Company presents “Bouncers” at Harrogate Theatre.
The play will run from 13-15 February, with both evening and matinee performances.
The play follows four friends reliving a night in a Yorkshire disco in the 1980’s. Guests can expect all aspects of the night out on stage, including the DJ and even a fish & chip van.
Tickets for the play start at £18.
Find more information here.
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”.
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Speaking at a meeting of the council’s general purposes committee last Thursday, Cllr Cooper said:
“It was a genuine offer, I assume, made for a genuine purpose and not just for party political chicanery.
“If a councillor makes a genuine offer to pay for a service and that service is provided then I would expect the honourable thing to do is to pay.
“Otherwise, I think everyone will assume that the offer was never genuine in the first place.”
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:
Harrogate council to continue live streaming meetings“I am happy to personally facilitate this purchase by the council, as long as my ‘buyers conditions’ are met and as the council leader gave assurance at the meeting that they would be – and obviously that is now on record for all to see.
“Richard has now guaranteed this will all happen and a relatively small financial contribution on my part to ensure this is no hardship.
“I strongly believe that if these conditions I have requested are met then it will enable more residents to view and perhaps more fully understand our deliberations, not just at full council and planning as was originally envisaged, but across all council committees.
“I think leaving the meeting online for a longer period will increase the opportunity for meetings to be viewed at a time and place convenient to the public – and not the council.
“If my requests are not fully met, I would be looking for some sort of recompense from the council, but I have no reason to doubt they will not be.”
Harrogate Borough Council has begun making preparations for the live streaming of meetings to continue when councillors return to the chamber next month.
Emergency regulations which allowed local authorities to meet remotely – where councillors tune in from different locations – were introduced in March last year and most meetings have since been broadcast online.
The rules will expire on May 6 when meetings must return in person but there is a government expectation that they must still be live streamed for members of the public.
Harrogate Borough Council has ordered live streaming equipment to install at its headquarters in what marks a major change from when councillors voted against any live streaming in January 2020 before the pandemic struck.
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They voted against the idea because of claims it would have been too expensive – and it is not yet known how much the new equipment will cost.
Conservative Cllr Ed Darling told a meeting on Thursday that the council was now waiting for the installation of equipment to begin.
He said:
“Remote meetings have become commonplace over the past year – I personally think they have been rather positive.
“A solution has now been ordered and we are awaiting its installation. Once it is installed and tested, the members ICT working group will meet to review the system.”
It comes as the High Court has this week rejected a challenge by local government lawyers and Hertfordshire County Council for online council meetings to continue after May 6.
Judges said primary legislation would be needed to extend these meetings and that it was not for the courts to set those laws.
Cllr Richard Cooper, Conservative leader of Harrogate Borough Council, previously said it was a “mistake” that meetings must return in-person before all coronavirus restrictions were lifted.
He also argued councils should be given a choice whether to hold meetings remotely or in-person in the future.
Announcing the end of the emergency regulations last month, Luke Hall, minister for regional growth and local government, said in a letter to councils that he recognised safety concerns but the vaccine rollout and fewer covid cases “should result in significant reduction in risk for local authority members meeting in-person”.