There are frequent criticisms of Test Valley Borough Council and the quality of debate by councillors. Are these justified? When people complain about the outcome of a planning application is the reaction reasonable or is it sour grapes?

I make no judgement but, did you know that you can now find out for yourself?

It is a legal requirement that minutes of meetings are recorded and publicly available so anyone can access the minutes of a Test Valley Borough Council meeting on their website. But we all know that the minutes are bone dry and do not always reflect the full breadth of deliberations at a meeting.  Until recently, that is all that was available to local residents. However, since July 2024 an audio recording of most meetings has been available on the website. It isn’t particularly prominent and the new service has not been widely promoted but at least it is available. 

It has taken some time to get there. 

In September 2022 I proposed a motion to the full Council meeting. The motion suggested, “This Council should aim to improve democracy and accountability by live streaming and recording all Council meetings that are held in public.” I knew I had the support of my Lib Dem colleagues. 

Initially, I was delighted to see that there was some support across the political divide. The motion was not thrown out but it was, unfortunately, kicked into the long grass of a sub-committee (for which there are no public minutes). Progress was agonisingly slow but over a year later the committee initially agreed to recommend to the Council that an audio-visual scheme be progressed. 

Ah, sadly this sad tale does not end there because the Leader of the Council, who could not make the initial meeting, did not like this decision, so called a second meeting at which his voting fodder could be present. The recommendation to Council was changed and the suggestion was that we would not proceed. 

Sadly, Council meetings frequently divide upon political lines so I did not have high hopes in Feb 2024 when the matter finally came to be debated. The recommendation was that “the Council does not proceed with broadcasting of democratic meetings at this time due to the implications as set out in the report be approved”. Much to my surprise, a late amendment by Councillor Daas, to proceed with audio only, achieved some cross party support and was passed. 

There were some early live broadcasts but now we have recordings as well. I think it could be clearer on the website that an audio recording is available. At the moment there is a button you can click on but it is not very clearly labelled. If you didn’t know that a recording was available you could easily miss it. 

So, if you are curious about something you read in the local press when someone is angry then have a listen and make your own mind up. The audiovisual component will be reviewed in two years’ time so, if you would like fuller transparency over council business, then please engage with the audio outputs. 

I strongly believe that the better the level of scrutiny, the better the quality of debate will be and that democracy will be better served. We have some significant planning decisions to make in the not too distant future and many people won’t be able to make the meetings but will want to know what is said. I can’t promise Jackie Weaver moments but I can say that you will be better informed and I do hope that some will take full advantage of the new opportunity that is available. 

Cllr Sandra Gidley,
Test Valley borough councillor