Malvern Hills District Council to Livestream Meetings

Malvern Hills District Council to live stream meetings following a £50,000 investment in recording equipment.

23:56 09 June 2022

Malvern Hills District Council’s executive committee has approved plans to spend £50,000 for the installation of new video recording equipment in the Council Chamber in Malvern so they can start streaming their meetings. 

 

Cllr Peter Whatley, portfolio holder for resources, said: “Our current system in this room, which is audio-only, is obsolescent and we have issues with the microphones and the batteries, which are very costly and quite a few of which need replacing,”

 

“It is limited in function to the point where it is becoming embarrassing in the sense that we can only do audio transmission to YouTube or other media.

 

“Most of our surrounding councils do full video with automatic pickup of the speakers, which may or may not be a good thing depending on how you view it, so the public can see what we are up to. There will be no hiding behind laptops.

 

“The important thing is that it puts us on a footing to do things in the future which are likely to become a matter of public expectation as well as probably hopefully enhancing democracy.

 

“Seeing what is going on and being able to participate in meetings at distance, if that becomes legal as it was during Covid.

 

“Of course, we will also benefit our destination zero objectives by not dragging people from Tenbury or Upton to Malvern for short meetings because we have to by law.”