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Powys County Times

Political placards may be stopped at Powys council meetings

COUNCILLORS may be stopped from having placards, signs or banners that make a political statement at future Powys council meetings. At a meeting of the authority's Standards Committee last week, members received a report from colleague Jonathan Goolden who had observed the council meeting that took place on March 6. At that meeting, opposition councillors had hoped a motion calling for a pause in the roll out of a controversial booking system at Powys recycling centres would be voted on. But their hopes were dashed as they were told that they had not submitted the motion in time. Committee lay member, Mr Goolden said that meeting had been 'good humoured, well chaired," but added: "One member displayed what I thought was a local paper headline saying 'What a load of rubbish'. 'At the time I thought this was a reference to a Powys issue, but it was a Shropshire issue.' The headline came from a newsletter published by the Liberal Democrats that highlighted they had successfully campaigned to overturn a similar booking system for recycling centres in Shropshire. The newsletter was placed in front of Conservative group leader, Cllr Aled Davies and highlighted the differing stances on recycling centres taken by Liberal Democrat politicians in Powys and Shropshire. Mr Goolden said: 'There is a balance between the right of members to express themselves freely on political matters and for a council meeting to be conducted with due efficiency and decorum – I just wish to draw that to members' attention in case it becomes an issue.' Head of Legal Services and Monitoring Officer, Clive Pinney, said: 'This is something we could ask the Democratic Services Committee to consider – if members think it's inappropriate we could write it into the constitution and prevent it happening in the future.' Cllr Iain Harrison said that the incident in question had been 'trivial', but with the state of the world at the moment this could lead down a 'slippery slope'. Cllr Harrison continued: 'We could see all sorts of imaging popping up that could create great offence to quite sizeable sections of the population. 'The simplest behaviour to adopt is that is that it's not allowed at all under any circumstances and we need to be very clear on that.' Cllr William Powell, council chairman, welcomed referring the issue, commenting: 'I think for a chair to be freelancing on the issue is probably dangerous in its own way and it would be better if it's backed up by due process. 'It would be a more solid basis on which to proceed.'