Seven motions have been put forward for debate at tonight’s Wokingham Borough Council meeting. With thirty minutes allocated to debate and vote on each motion, it will be impossible to consider all of them, along with the rest of the essential business of the council, within the three-and-a-half-hour meeting.
To ensure that we create as much time as possible to talk through the backlog of motions Conservative councillors have proposed the following changes to tonight's agenda, and have called on members of all parties to follow our lead and do the same;
We have withdrawn all of our members’ questions and will receive only written answers, all of which we will publish on our website.
We will also not be asking any ward questions during tonight's meeting.
We forego our opportunity to make Executive Member statements and the Leader of the Council only a brief statement at the start of the meeting.
Similarly, we will not be making statements from any council-owned companies.
If the other groups choose to follow our lead then collectively this could save enough time to debate two additional motions during this council meeting.
We recognise that we need to find a long term solution to this problem, as statements, member questions and ward questions are a vital part of our local democratic process. We are committed to listening to any ideas suggested that will help resolve this issue and will work with all parties to find a solution that benefits our residents in the long term.
