Parties clash over potential covid “spreader” full council meeting

13/07/2021

Decision to hold in-person County Council meeting attacked

By David Tooley, Local Democracy Reporter

A top Tory blasted a decision to go ahead with today’s (Tuesday, July 13) face-to-face full County Council meeting during an outbreak of the delta variant of covid in Oxford.

Oxfordshire County councillors met in socially distanced fashion at Banbury’s Spiceball Leisure Centre, but Cllr Kieron Mallon said attendees could take the virus to “all points of the compass”.

The council’s Lib Dem leader Cllr Liz Leffman hit back by saying that her opponent should take it up with the Government, which had forced local councils to meet face-to-face.

Cllr Mallon (Bloxham & Easington) asked: “Could the leader of the council explain to the people of Oxfordshire in general and Banbury in particular why councillors and officers from all over Oxfordshire – but particularly Oxford – have to attend this meeting?”

He added: “Nobody except those attending would have noticed if it had been held over until the next scheduled meeting.”

Cllr Leffman (Charlbury & Wychwood) said it was important for local democracy that the meeting was held.

“We have been elected to represent the voters of this county and we have a duty to do that,” she said.

And she insisted that the meeting was “covid safe” and did not risking spreading the infection.

“We did not choose to hold meetings this way, we were directed to by the Government which has eroded the powers of local authorities to make their own decisions,” she added.

“I suggest that rather than complaining to the cabinet you take it to the Government and speak to local Conservative MPs.”

Cllr Mallon pressed the issue further. “While I note that the cabinet have been given individual microphones it occurs to me that we the mere backbenchers have had to use communal microphones, unmasked, with our mouths two or three inches away from the microphones,” he said.

“No antivirus cleansing routine has taken place between speakers.”

He added that it was a “potential covid-19 spreading practice that we will take to all points of the compass in Oxfordshire.”

Council chairman, Cllr John Howson (Lib Dem, St Margaret’s) held his hands up saying that the ultimate decision to hold the meeting was his, and not the cabinet’s. But he did not comment further on the rights and wrongs of the decision.

In starting the meeting Cllr Howson said that the pandemic is not over and “we all need to be responsible and cautious.”

He urged all adults to take a PCR test and praised council officers “resolve and resilience”.


Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam

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