MORE people in Trowbridge should be involved in council matters says the town council which has vowed to use social media and live online streaming.

Councillors agreed in a meeting last Tuesday that more could be done to include the public in council meetings, such as publicising items on the agenda.

Cllr Edward Kirk said: “It has concerned me for some time that we don’t have the public participation that I would like to see at council meetings.

“We have only one member of the public who turns up to most council meetings.

“It feels to me like our meetings are held in isolation, and when we are talking about public money I am simply just not happy with it and I’m not happy with my role being here or being accountable in any way and it troubles me.

“We spend your money and you should be here to check that we are doing the best job we possibly can.”

Cllr Steve Oldrieve said: “I see the point about greater public participation, and I think we should think about a modern method such as live streaming.”

Cllr Stewart Palmen said: “I am very keen on the idea of getting more public involved and I think there is different ways of doing that such as having an agenda that makes the public more involved in decisions during the meeting. If you have £1000 and you have three different options of where that grant goes and people can have their say on that.”

Cllr Kirk proposed that the town council should move its meetings to somewhere more social, such as a café or the town hall in an attempt to include more of the public.

He said: “As the public won’t come to us, I think we need to make an effort to go out to the public.

“I tried to say we should have meetings in a bar or a café but our standing orders say we are not allowed to hold meetings in a place that serves alcohol.

“Therefore I would like to go outside of this building, try it in a more public area and see if we can get more people involved in the decision making of Trowbridge.

But his colleagues felt was not the way to go about bringing more members of the public in.

Cllr Steve Oldrieve said: “I wouldn’t be in favour of this as I think it is just going to cause confusion. This is where town council meetings are held, this is where people would expect us to meet and I don’t think moving to the town hall offers enough advantage over having it here.”

Councillors voted against moving the town council meetings, but did agree on looking into using social media more frequently and the possibility of live streaming public meetings.