Heated exchanges in high temperature chamber.

As expected there were some good quality debates at tonight's meeting of Tenbury Town Council.

Four Councillors had asked for a resolution on the restructuring of committees to be bought back before the Council for further debate and clarification.

A larger than usual number of members of the public watched, in an already hot Council chamber as all of the Councillors participated in discussing, whether to proceed with reducing the size of the committees to 5 or to maintain the status quo at around 7.

The argument for; was that smaller committees would lead to better quality debating and more clarity of decision.  It was also pointed out that smaller committees would be more likely to call upon expert assistance.  The full Council would then be in a position to challenge the resolution as the majority wouldn't have already voted.

The counter argument was that if the system isn't broke, why fix it and concerns that on occasion the committees would be too small to form a quorum.

The Town Clerk explained that smaller committees could slow down the process as at the moment she can process certain resolutions without having to wait for full Council as the majority of Councillors would have already voted.

There was also the  question of whether committees should be made up of Councillors with no "interests" or whether the reverse should be true.  The majority felt that it was best for the committees to contain the Councillors with the most appropriate knowledge and that was most likely to be those with an "interest", but this should be clearly stated at the beginning of the meeting as now.

The Councillors were split 50/50 on a resolution to maintain the status quo, but the Mayor's vote against meant that the original resolution to reform was confirmed.

The suggestion that the number of Councillors required to call a resolution back for further discussion should be increased from 3 to 7 was withdrawn as it was obvious it would not get full support.