Storm over postponed council meeting

THE October meeting of Frodsham Town Council was postponed for one week on the day it should have been held – amid claims and counter-claims as to the reason why.
Outspoken councillor Frank Pennington – currently excluded from all the council’s committees and working groups following his comments comparing the council to Hitler – claimed a blunder had led to the council failing to give adequate notice of the meeting on its website and on council notice boards around the town.
He said members of the public were entitled to have seven days notice of a meeting and if they were not the meeting could not legally be held.
He said: “It is the first time in the 39 years I have been on the council that a meeting has been cancelled like this. I have been saying for ages that the council is in chaos and this is another example of it.”
Cllr Pennington added that the council had regularly failed to meet the seven-day deadline over the last three years, but no-one had noticed.
But council chairman Cllr Mark Warren responded: “Cllr Pennington, after 39 years, ought to have a better understanding of our Standing Orders that he, himself, voted in
“Our Standing Orders reflect the Local Government Act 1972 – that three clear days notice are given.
“This ordinarily means that for a Monday meeting it should be called by the preceding Wednesday at the latest. As it happens, the meeting was called on the Tuesday.
“Cllr Pennington is, I suspect, incorrectly referring to the necessary call period for a town meeting, which is one week.
“There is a separate issue, that of public notice of the agenda. The Local Government Act says the agenda must be posted in a place prominent to the public.
“Frodsham Town Council has a number of locations where the agenda is published, including public notice boards, the library, medical centre, Castle Park and our website.
“ We had reports from a member of the public that the agenda wasn’t posted on the website and at least one of the public notice boards with three clear days’ notice. This was certainly the case with the website, and in light of the fact that important decisions are taken at Town Council meetings, concerning public money, we erred on the side of caution to enable the agenda to be as widely available as possible,. The decision was taken that the meeting be postponed.
“To my knowledge, this is the first time the agenda has been missed off the website until such a late stage, but the issue brings about some interesting possibilities about other ‘prominent places’ we could post and increase our profile, such as the social media. ”
Town clerk Jon Wild said: “The meeting could have gone ahead legally but it was decided, in the interests of good communication, to postpone it for a week. There was no cost to the council in doing this.”
A defiant Cllr Pennington retorted: “I stand by what I said. Seven days notice should have been given. If a member of the public had not reported the matter the meeting would have gone ahead – but would have been illegal.”