Councillors in Bury have rejected calls to start livestreaming more of the town hall’s meetings, after claims some would ‘cost more than a ticket to Oasis’ to broadcast.
At a full council meeting on Wednesday, January 23, independent group Radcliffe First proposed re-introducing live videos of planning and scrutiny meetings to ‘rebuild trust in local councils’.
The town hall currently only streams full council meetings. But many Greater Manchester authorities stream other parts of their decision-making processes.
Councillor Carol Birchmore said: “As a councillor, I find it upsetting to read comments like ‘councillors just turn up and take the money’ and claims of brown envelopes are hurtful to both staff and councillors.
“If people only understood what councillors do. Evidently, we are failing to get this message across. We not only need to be doing the right thing, but we also need to be seen to be doing the right thing.”
A member in the public gallery also spoke out on the issue, adding that though meetings are open to the public, those with disabilities or care duties struggle to access them.
Bury Council streamed many of its meetings during the pandemic, but decided to limit the number of broadcasts at the start of 2024 after a cost analysis of the service.
“We came to a view that those meetings that were most viewed ought still to be livestreamed,” council leader Eammon O’Brien told the council.
“Some meetings got zero views. There were 12 planning meetings in 2023 – and a total of 195 views across all of them – about 16 per meeting.
"This is not the make-or-break issue when it comes to trust. There aren’t that many people out there who want to view these meetings.”
The suggestion was voted down by the majority of councillors, but Cllr O’Brien revealed that a new protocol would allow members to request individual meetings be broadcast if there is a significant public interest in the agenda.
“I think that is a reasonable balance of public interest and cost effectiveness,” he added.
“We don’t want the cost of viewing a council meeting to cost more than a ticket to Oasis. That’s what some of those meetings were coming towards.”
Share