Harrogate Council Not to Stream Council Meetings

Harrogate Council votes against streaming meetings online.

05:05 30 January 2020

 

Councillor Chris Aldred first proposed the idea of streaming council meetings online at December’s Full Meeting. After the borough council’s General Purposes Committee met on Thursday, they have decided to not push through with broadcasting its meetings on the internet due to cost.

 

Coun Richard Cooper (Con), leader of the council, said: "It is very simply a cost issue. I cannot justify spending tens of thousands of pounds on streaming meetings that will be watched by two or three people at home.

 

"How could we tell people that we are not building the affordable homes they need because we decided instead to spend the money putting our meetings online.

 

"We have looked at other authorities and seen the very low numbers of people who view the meetings and I could not simply tell people that we were having to make cuts or closing leisure centers because we spent tens of thousands of pounds providing this for two or three people."

 

Meanwhile, Local Democracy Reporting Service Coun Aldred said he was disappointed by the decision. He said: "We already have cameras set up in the council chamber to provide an internal feed so I don't see why it would be such a big deal to start streaming meetings online for the public to watch?

 

"I just don't think the council wants to do it. In this day and age, all councils should be doing this."

 

"I think we will soon be in the minority of councils that do not stream their meetings online."