| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Cllr Ruth Cadbury at today's read-in | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 06/02/11 21:32:00 |
| Steve Whilst I agree with your suggestion in its entirety, I think the best and most obvious way to encourage resident participation at area committees would be to actually make them relevant to most residents. At planning meetings there is inevitably a lot of discussion that is technical and strategically of little interest to residents other than those directly affected, but monitoring meetings have always in my view been turgid affairs featuring lengthy presentations that are largely only of interest to anoraks, and at which resident participation is often restricted to a brief five or ten minutes at the end of the meeting by which time chairs and members alike are tired and just want the meeting to finish. One idea possibly worth exploring would be to have community groups actually taking control of the meetings and councillors adopting a supporting role? Radical, but it could work. |