Advice please re Agendas for Extraordinary Meetings

Question

Hi,

We (Parish Cllrs x 2) have just submitted our request for an EGM to our Chair. We only have one item to discuss which is our response to a planning application (our current response is to support but recent evidence has come to light regarding Neighbourhood Plan compliance making this initial decision unsupportable).

A group of parishioners set up an action group and we would like to allow them time to give a presentation (so longer than the usual 2mins they would have in our public forums), so we sense the agenda would be twofold 1. The presentation by parishioners action group and 2. Our discussion of the planning application.

My question is in regards to the agenda- I understand that as we have called the meeting we can decide the agenda but do we still have to specifically agenda a public forum (given the parishioners intend to speak as a group via the presentation) or is it acceptable to just have the agenda contain the two items above? Just wasn’t sure if we are legally obliged to include “public forum” expressly on the agenda.

Thanks,

Rob

Answer 1

The agenda must include & correctly describe the items to be discussed.  In regular Council meetings public participation is clearly identified on an agenda . If the EGM has only one item is must clearly state that it includes a discussion forum open to all who attend.

Comments

Thank you Graeme_r, I will ensure the agenda clearly states that a public forum will also take place. The EGM request letter was submitted to our Chair on Friday and we are yet to receive a reply (and suspect one will not be forthcoming) so are now proceeding on the basis of waiting the requisite 7 days before going ahead and publishing our agenda 3 days prior to the EGM.
We did also send an email to our Clerk asking for sight of some documents (2x email responses) sent to the Chair from the planning officer in charge of the application as they would be helpful information for us all to see ahead of the EGM but it’s been over a week and we’ve had no reply from the Clerk to what seemed to us to be a simple request for two emails, but we will send a chaser when we submit the agenda to the Clerk in the hope of being able to see the planning officers comments to our council before the EGM takes place.