Council adopts committee structure

Welshpool Town Council has voted to overturn a previous decision and restrict the number of members sitting on committees after taking legal advice.

Since May 2016 the council has been operating a system which saw councillors elected to committees which were restricted to eight members but last month councillors voted that they could attend every committee meeting.

But Town Clerk Robert Robinson reported that he had taken advice from Powys County Council’s legal department that the whole council could not sit as a committee.

Now the council has voted to accept a recommendation from the town clerk’s committee to change the system to allow councillors to sit on a maximum three committees after some councillors who failed to win committee seats under a voting system found themselves excluded from all meetings.

An amendment to the proposal to allow 13 councillors to sit on committees failed by a vote of 8-6.