A MOTION to change the times of meetings of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council’s management committee is set to be discussed.

The management committee is the authority’s decision-making body, and traditionally takes place every six weeks at 9.30am.

But some councillors feel the timing means younger elected members, who work full-time, cannot take part, either as briefholders or as ward representatives to raise issues they would like to see discussed.

The management committee is made up of 10 briefholders, of which currently four are Conservative, three Labour, two Liberal Democrat and one independent (UKIP). 

Briefholders are nominated by the leader of the political parties on the borough council, and the number of positions given to each political party relates to how many wards each party holds.

Cllr Gill Taylor, briefholder for housing and group leader for the Lib Dems, said whether or not a councillor is nominated for the position depends on the number of management committee meetings they will be able to attend in the year.

She added: “Cllr Ryan Hope has been a borough councillor for five years, but he works full-time and can’t get time off from his job, so is unable to attend this committee even as an observer. So any chance of me putting him on the committee is zilch.

“We keep saying we want younger councillors to take part but then exclude them at the outset because of the timing of this meeting. It’s ludicrous.”

She called for meetings to start at 6pm, which she said would have the added benefit of encouraging the committee to ‘be more focused’.

Cllr Jeff Cant, leader of the council, said: “I think if we had evening meetings we might find it difficult to get home before midnight.”

A vote was held, which was narrowly defeated – with four councillors voting in favour of meetings starting at 6pm and five voting against. There was one abstention.

Cllr Ray Nowak said it was perhaps a matter which should be taken to full council, so all members could discuss the issue and have a say.

A vote on this was held, and carried, and the issue has been timetabled to be discussed at the next full council meeting in June.