The Liberal Democrats have finally persuaded Rochford District Council to allow the public to speak at meetings dealing with planning applications.
One member of the public will be allowed to speak for up to 5 minutes in support of an application. Another person will be allowed to speak for up to 5 minutes against an application. This is still rather restrictive – if you want to speak , you will have to contact the council in advance, and somebody else might be allowed to speak rather than you. Parhaps later we can get the council to agree to having two speakers on each side.
Anyway, this is still a great leap forward for our council, and we managed to fend off an attempt by Conservative Hockley Councillor Jeremy Thomass to reduce the period to 3 minutes.