Totnes Town Council Public Meetings ONLINE

Thanks so much to the 30 towns' folks that signed the petition taken to the council requesting permission to record the meetings for broadcast, and to the 7 out of 13 councillors that responded positively and chose to see this project as a good idea, and to the recent unanimous decision to allow the broadcasts to become an online archive.

Totnes Town Council is the parish authority for the town of Totnes. It is the third tier of local government, after South Hams District Council and Devon County Council. Its legal powers are granted to it and regulated by various government acts.

The town population is approximately 8000. The Town Council supplements the provision of local government services in Totnes and provides a range of social and recreational facilities, while promoting and representing the town with other national and statutory bodies.

This is a resource for anyone interested in hearing Council news from the horses' mouths... Once called 'the worlds' most boring radio show' on a forum (but not even followed by an award?!), these meeting recordings offer a fascinating 2 hour window into Town Council discussions, campaigns and actions.

The Town Council acts as a consultee and lobbying force with both the county and district councils, and both regional and national government, putting forward the wishes and needs of the local community. 

Each meeting begins with a minutes silence, and then public speaking time - 15 minutes for town's people to address the council and raise a issue, or  a question, or make an announcement. This is followed by district and county councillor reports, and then the meeting itself...

Totnes is a wonderful place to live- and the Totnes Town Councils' hard work contributes to ensure that it remains so.


Generally this monthly meeting takes 2 hours- it serves as the event at which full council answer the previous month's enquiries and vote upon recommendations that have been discussed in detail at the council's focused group meetings: policy development committee, planning committee, financial scrutiny committee etc- and the various working groups, for instance the Civic Hall working group, and the Castle Meadow working group.

Usually an editor would decide which part of any meeting is to be publicised through their publication, and then digest it into 'soundbites' (or textbytes) for the public's consumption. That is a lot of responsibility for a individual- I may be sceptical but our local paper funds itself mainly through house sales via estate agent advertising, so has a vested interest in a attactive public image, and as we see on the international scale, media tends to come with an agenda which is not always a commitment to clarity and education...

Broadcasting in the form of a whole and unabridged programme allows that listeners may well have different ideas about what is important in a meeting, and want to hear with their own ears what and how the council's town business is discussed. The difficulty of involving the public in government is well documented- but on a very simple level, ensuring information is shared openly encourages participation-

"It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error." Justice Robert Jackson (Nuremburg Trial Judge)

Soundart Radio broadcasting on FM, and the library holding recordings on DVD, and now a online archive ensure that 'access' and 'transparency' are not just words to be heard once a month if you have the time and ability to attend the live meeting   :-)

Listen here - Totnes Town Council Meetings on Mixcloud

Totnes Town Council voted in 2011 to allow local community radio station Soundart Radio 102.5fm to broadcast the monthly public meetings. In 2012 they voted to allow a online archive of those recordings :-)

Meetings start at 7pm, first Monday of each month - all welcome.

Minutes of previous meetings, agendas and more info is available from the website:

www.totnestowncouncil.gov.uk

The recordings are broadcast the morning following the meetings 10am on 102.5fm and at

www.soundartradio.org.uk

-and are also held on DVD at Totnes Town Library (please provide your own earplugs if you wish to use this service, for health and safety reasons).

Broadcasting allows towns people that could not otherwise attend a meeting to hear the proceedings and be informed as to the work of the elected representatives of the town.

Each recording is a meeting in full- the only editorial work is on the volume levels of sneezes, applause, laughter etc.