PARISH council meetings in Cheshire have come into the national spotlight in recent days.

Not only has a viral clip of a Handforth Parish Council meeting gained more than five million views on Twitter, but coverage has also focused on a Penketh parish councillors’ explosive rant from last year.

Now, in the wake of these two incidents, more attention is being paid to Frodsham Town Council.

What’s happened?

On January 11, Frodsham Town Council conducted its annual budget and precept meeting over Zoom.

It’s one of the most important meetings of the year for any parish/town council, as it determines the organisation’s financial plans for the coming year — including how much residents will pay to the council.

During the discussion, Lucy Sumner, representing the Waterside Ward, repeatedly raised issue with the way some money — earmarked for play area improvements — had been ‘written off’, despite work not being completed.

She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “In the current financial year, the money has been written off as spent — which was not true as there were items that had not been completed.

“I had asked for these reports twice in writing. It is really not straightforward. I was trying to make the point that the money was a projection, not a surplus.”

After a clash with Clerk Jo O’Donoghue, Sumner was then placed into a Zoom waiting room of the meeting, prompting more than one councillor to express their discomfort at that decision.

Cllr Ryan McKeown reacts: “I’m not happy with that at all. If Lucy’s not brought back in then I’ll leave as well.”

The issue with these actions is that FTC’s standing orders — the rules which govern its democratic processes — only allow for a member to be removed from a meeting for disorderly conduct if agreed to by a vote of councillors present.

The document says: “If person(s) disregard the request of the chairman of the meeting to moderate or improve their conduct, any councillor or the chairman of the meeting may move that the person be no longer heard or be excluded from the meeting. The motion, if seconded, shall be put to the vote without discussion.”

What was the reaction?

In the aftermath of the meeting, Ms Sumner resigned her position as a councillor, and Jo O’Donoghue issued an apology at the next meeting.

According to Nub News, the FTC Clerk said: “I apologise to all councillors for overstepping the mark on Monday, January 11. [To the Councillor concerned], I particularly apologise to you for having put you in the ‘waiting room’ during the meeting.

“In hindsight, this was not acceptable.

“It didn’t help the situation and won’t happen again. Chair [Judith Critchley], I apologise for undermining your authority as Chair.

“In hindsight, I should have enabled the Chair to control the meeting and not have taken such an active part.”

However, it has also been suggested that the clerk had been advised by Jackie Weaver, chief officer of the Cheshire Association of Local Councils.

Lucy Sumner said: “A member of the public has told me that the clerk was advised before the meeting that she could use the waiting room on the advice of Jackie Weaver.

“I find this quite concerning, especially with the situation in Handforth.”

In response, Jackie Weaver told the LDRS: “I did have a conversation with Jo the Clerk but it was not around ‘how do I eject a councillor from a meeting’.

“She did express concerns about the possibility of the meeting becoming acrimonious and how to assist the chairman to keep order in the meeting.  

“We discussed the options available when using Zoom which of course are mute and/or remove to waiting room. The mute function is similar to turning off the microphone of a councillor in a council chamber and the chairman cannot remove someone to the waiting room as they do not operate the meeting controls.  

“Finally (and without making specific reference to any councillor) if councillors behaved in accordance with the Code of Conduct there would be no need for any councillor to be muted or temporarily removed.

“It is unlikely that there was a breach of Frodsham Standing Orders since the Standing Order are very unlikely to cover the holding of a virtual meeting and how to maintain order therein.

“It is unhelpful to draw comparisons between Handforth (say) and Frodsham as Frodsham had both the Clerk and the Chairman present at a meeting called in the usual way.”

For Ms Sumner, the episode has been ‘quite horrible’, especially having chosen to join the council so as to be the only woman under-50 and only young mother — and represent the views of those groups in the town.

She added: “I was marginalised quite a lot by the council. Certain people do not like what I have to say.”

Although Frodsham’s spat will not take Twitter by storm like Handforth’s did, there is still some ill-feeling within the organisation as Zoom-fatigue begins to take its toll.