Walk out leaves parish council short

A scheduled meeting of Holbeach Parish Council was forced to be abandoned last week after two councillors walked out.
Couns Mark Murphet and Tim Wiltshire left in protest and there were insufficient members remaining to continue.
They were unhappy that a previous 10 minute time slot for open questions at the start of the meeting had been replaced with a 25-minute open forum.
The new time set aside also would not be filmed alongside the rest of the meeting and a one-minute question session on agenda matters.
Coun Wiltshire said that the council lacked transparency.
A spokesman for Holbeach Parish Council said: “Our agenda consisted of an item to amend our standing orders. The PR/IT committee has been trying out different ideas to improve public engagement.
“They decided to provide a 25-minute open forum before the meeting instead of the ten-minute open forum during the meeting, as we found we get a better response from the public. This was evident again last night as more people were in attendance.
“A couple of members were not in agreement of this despite being informed of the recommendations and why, and so decided to leave the meeting abruptly.
Unfortunately, the meeting could not go ahead so will have to be re-scheduled which has disrupted council business and caused additional spending.
“It has also delayed two new councillors joining.”