Sefton Council Celebrates Future Live Streaming, Yet Hesitates on Past Meeting Record

If we can live stream council meetings from now on, then why can’t Sefton Council publish the recording of the 11th September meeting? 

Conservative Leader on Sefton Council, Mike Prendergast, is calling for the recording of the Council meeting on 11th September to be made available to the public.

The request follows on from the news that the meeting this week, at Southport Town Hall, will be live streamed. 

Councillor Prendergast said, “It’s certainly welcome news that future full council meetings will be live streamed and made available to the public. It should not have taken this long to get to this stage and at times it has seemed like the council leadership have been reluctant to get here”

“The equipment to be used was tested, again, at the last meeting on 11th September and, presumably, the recording was of sufficient quality to enable the decision for full live streaming to take place this week.”

“If that’s the case, then there would seem to be no justifiable reason to not publish the recording of the September meeting as well. So why not just publish the recording?”

“That meeting had a particularly packed agenda with a lot of items rolled over from the meeting that was abandoned in July. In total there were 26 items on the agenda including debates on NHS services in Southport and the possibility of Children’s A&E returning, discussions on AI, Children’s social care and a host of other important local issues.”

“I’ve requested that the recording is made available to the public but this request has been refused on the basis that those there were told it wasn’t being live streamed.”

“I’m sure all councillors present in September would have no objection to the recording being published so I can’t understand the rationale for not publishing a recording of a meeting when it’s available.”

“Transparency is important and however messy and imperfect local democracy might be, it’s important that members of the public get to see how their elected representatives debate and make decisions in Sefton especially as we move towards the all out elections in May next year.”