Conservative councillors have put down a motion calling on Labour-run Merton to think again about scrapping the webcasting of high profile meetings such as Full Council and the Planning Applications Committee (PAC) and to consider alternative options to maintain this service for residents.
Since its introduction 3 years ago, webcasting has encouraged greater openness and transparency of council proceedings by giving Merton residents who can’t attend meetings in person the choice to follow discussions online from their home or workplace. However, the service is set to be discontinued after February’s PAC meeting despite last month seeing the highest number of views ever recorded.
Cllr Hamish Badenoch – Conservative Councillor for Village Ward - said:
“Merton Labour clearly don’t want anyone to see them making the decisions which affect residents’ everyday lives. They seem to have forgotten they were elected to serve, not to rule.
“December’s Planning Committee meeting was a prime example of how webcasting can open up council proceedings to a larger audience. Without it, all those people tuning in from home to see the decision on AFC Wimbledon’s Plough Lane application or watching on large screens in the Civic Centre would have been left standing outside the packed Council Chamber.
“Yet Labour councillors still prefer to lavish hundreds of thousands of pounds on their council propaganda machine rather than use a small proportion to maintain webcasting. Whilst their past record on enhancing transparency and democracy is poor, they now have one final chance to listen to residents and embrace greater accountability.”
1) The Conservative motion will be debated on Wednesday 3 February and can be found at the following link:
http://democracy.merton.gov.uk/documents/s11126/Conservative_Motion1-Webcasting.pdf
2) Webcasting in Merton was originally introduced as a result of the successful adoption of a motion put down by Conservative councillors back in 2012.
3) At the last Budget Council meeting in March 2015, Labour councillors voted to scrap webcasting in Merton despite a fully funded Conservative budget amendment to continue the service being supported by all Conservative, Merton Park Independent and Lib Dem councillors.
4) Merton council’s webcasting received 6232 views in December 2015.
5) Discontinuing the webcasting service in Merton follows various other recent decisions by Labour to curtail democracy. These include abolition of the Street Management Advisory Committee without consultation; refusing to respond to residents via Twitter on issues such as litter, fly tipping, street lighting, parks, noise pollution and anti-social behaviour; not undertaking the Annual Residents Survey this year; and limiting the number of questions that Opposition councillors can put to Cabinet Members at Full Council.