Councillors in Scarborough have urged the new North Yorkshire Council to live stream all its meetings online to improve transparency and cut down on the need for long-distance travel.
They have raised concerns that not all the meetings of the council, headquartered in Northallerton, may be broadcast online.
The council's executive member for corporate services David Chance says meetings of the executive, the full council, and area planning and licensing committees will still be broadcast.
Other meetings will be streamed ‘when there is a strong public interest or when there are facilities in place’.
Most councils started to live stream their meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic and Scarborough Council – one of the districts which formed the new council – continued the practice with almost all its meetings available to watch online.
John Ritchie, who is set to be chosen as the charter mayor of Scarborough, said: ‘There can be no good reason for not live streaming the majority of our meetings other than technical capability.
‘North Yorkshire Council has made a great deal of its intention to remain local when it comes to its delivery of services – surely that must mean allowing residents to play a central role in our local democracy.
‘We need to give residents the confidence to trust us when it comes to our decision-making.’
