Abermule council to return to physical meetings

Abermule with Llandyssil Community Council voted unanimously to return to a physical setting for next month's meeting, and will now return to Abermule Community Centre on October 7.

It follows a row over the recording of remotely-attended meetings, as after the August meeting council clerk Gwilym Rippon asked campaign group Abermule Communities Together to remove a clip of the meeting that was uploaded on the group's Facebook page.

Powys County Councillor for Dolforwyn which includes Abermule, Cllr Gareth Pugh, said he would “100 per cent" want to return to the community centre.

And Cllr Gwyneth Jones added: “After what’s happened I don’t want to know about Zoom.”

Risk assessments and social distancing will be needed at the hall, which has capacity for 37 people, and the public may be limited to only five people being able to attend.

After the incident at the August meeting, ACT was told that the group had breached the council’s standing orders by not asking for permission to record the meeting.

During a section of the meeting that allows for public speakers to take part councillors and their partners had condemned ACT’s actions.

Mark Pearce of ACT defended the campaign group’s actions by pointing out that the Local Authorities (Coronavirus) (Meetings) (Wales) Regulations 2020 supersedes council standing orders.

Mr Rippon insisted that ACT had breached legislation and said: “I don’t want you looking in to my home or my home put on any sites, nobody should be recording it.”

Cllr Pugh, said: “Bottom line is we don’t want it viewed all over Facebook and Gwilym can mute the lot of you.”

The legislation in Wales does differ to England  at town and community council level.

In England people attending meetings can film, take photographs or make an audio recording of the proceedings.

In Wales, this is “encouraged” but not backed up in law.

According to the Welsh Government this is to allow for a “flexibility of approach.”