Hastings Borough Council to hold first ever virtual full council meeting

Hastings Borough Council will hold its first virtual full council meeting on Wednesday 21 October at 6pm.

The full council meeting, which involves all 32 of the elected councillors, subject to their availability, will be live streamed on the council's website. A recording will also be made and posted to the webpage once the meeting has finished.

The full council will be asked to make two decisions - one on the Annual Treasury Management Outturn report, another on recommendation 6 of the Next Steps Accommodation Programme - decisions that only it has the power to make. The full council may also discuss reports related to items that have been decided elsewhere (for example, Cabinet, Museums Committee, and so on), so that councillors can give their views on them.

View the agenda for this meeting.

The way the council meeting works will be a little different to usual. A key part of traditional full council meetings was answering (pre-submitted) questions from residents. Due to the technological challenges of live streaming members of the public into the meeting, these questions will be answered with written replies. This will apply to both the original and supplementary questions, the responses to which will be given to questioners and published.

Virtual meetings are more challenging to manage and as we cannot expect people to watch a screen for more than 3 hours we will schedule a 15 minute break at 7.30pm and finish by no later than 9pm. If needed, a continuation date for the meeting will be scheduled for 9 or 10 November for any business that is not covered in time.

Cllr Judy Rogers, lead councillor for equalities, organizational wellbeing and performance, said,

"Full council meetings are a very important part of local democracy, so I am really pleased that we are holding our first ever virtual council meeting. I would like to thank the officers who have worked so hard to enable this meeting to take place virtually, breaking new ground for this council, and the cross-party Working Arrangements Group who have suggested ways to make the meeting work effectively.

"It will be great to see members of the public tuning in to this first ever virtual meeting. A recording will be made available on our website for those that can't follow live. Full council meetings play a key role in local democracy and for you, our residents, to have your say. Please remember that you do not have to wait for a full council meeting to ask questions. If you cannot find information on our website, you can ask questions via your local ward councillor, one of the lead councillors or the leader or deputy leader of the council. Contact details are available on our website."