Ashby de la Zouch Town Council has raised the possibility of future committee meetings going 'virtual' as a result of the Government's new measures to combat Coronavirus.

All further Town Council meetings have now been suspended 'for the foreseeable future' and the council's Legion House office in South Street has been closed to the public.

But, at present, UK law would not allow councils to conduct meetings online, via Skype for example, to avoid councillors attending in person - and the council urged the Government to look into the issue.

The Leader of Ashby de la Zouch Town Council, Councillor John Coxon, said on Wednesday: "Following official government advice regarding social distancing to contain the spread of Covid-19 and updated guidance from the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) it is with great regret that Ashby de la Zouch Town Council has made the difficult decision to suspend all further Town Council meetings for the foreseeable future.

"Day to day running of the Town Council's activities has been delegated to the Town Clerk.

"Any decisions will be taken in consultation with the Leader of the Town Council and the appropriate Committee Chairman.

"In addition, Legion House will be closed, forthwith, to members of the public until further notice.

"All communication with the Town Council office should be by email, telephone or social media channels. Town Council employees should work from home when it is practicable to do so.

 

"In light of recent events surrounding the spread of Covid-19 we must ensure that public safety remains our priority. Whilst it is deeply regrettable having to suspend our meetings and close Legion House during these uncertain times, we feel this is the right, and only, course of action to take.

"We wish you all well, please stay safe."

The council's planning and transportation committee met on Monday evening, just before Prime Minister Boris Johnson's address to the nation in which he said members of the public should stay at home wherever possible.

But the town council says the possibility of virtual committee meetings is something that needs to be addressed at Government level.

Town Clerk Jack Fargher explained the situation the town council now finds itself in along with authorities all over the country.

He told committee members: "When the agendas went out the advice from NALC was that there was no reason not to have meetings. By the following Friday that had changed to 'We should not be having meetings'.

"There's a couple of issues that the Government still needs to wrestle with.

"The first is the possibility of having 'virtual' meetings, at the moment the law doesn't allow us to do that.

"The 1972 Local Government Act there has to be a presence, and a show of hands when voting which would exclude Skype or emails.

"The Government are going to have to deal with that if they want us to hold further meetings.

"But the second one they have to address is the holding of statutory meetings that we have to have, the first one on the horizon is the annual meeting of the town council in May. They're going to have to deal with that somehow or another.

"The other thing we need to work out is how we're going to deal with the annual accounts.

"I have to present the accounts to you for approval by the end June at the very latest, that's going to prove extremely difficult in the current circumstances to be able to achieve that objective.

"The National Association of Local Councils have some real issues to deal with.

"But we are in uncharted territory as you'll have gathered.

"I think it's a sensible step to close Legion House to the public although most people seem to be voting with their feet. But we need to protect our staff."