News / Politics
Bristol City Council to hold public meetings via Zoom
Bristol councillors will be hoping that their first meeting over Zoom will be more successful than the experience of their colleagues in South Somerset Council.
A recent online planning meeting was disrupted by someone playing sounds from a porn film, as well as people joining under suggestive names and using abusive language.
Meetings of Bristol City Council will be held remotely using video conferencing software from April 22.
Councillors will be able to access the virtual public meetings using Zoom, with Skype used for meetings with exempt items.
Voting will be able to be done via Zoom’s built-in polling system, by a show of hands or by a roll call at a full council meeting.
“We will learn from this process and quickly review how the public can access and be part of future meetings,” said a South Somerset Council spokesperson after a planning meeting was interrupted by pornography noises – photo: Zoom
The virtual public meetings will be broadcast live on YouTube, with members of the public able to submit statements, questions and petitions in advance.
For the first meetings, members of the public but will not be able to speak but the council is looking at options which will allow people to ask questions via Zoom, which could be in place as early as April’s full council meeting.
Main photo by Martin Booth
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