Northampton Borough Council meetings cancelled until the middle of May

Public meetings at The Guildhall have been cancelled

It comes as the coronavirus outbreak continues to enforce the government to bring in stricter instructions on social distancing in a bid to curb the growing number of cases.

The borough council has several committees that meet monthly to carry out council business, but they have all been put on hold until May 12 according to the borough council’s calendar of meetings.

The last public council meeting to be held was the planning committee last Tuesday (March 17).

Last week Local Government Secretary, Robert Jenrick MP, said the government would ‘consider bringing forward legislation to allow council committee meetings to be held virtually for a temporary period’.

And in parliament on March 16, MP for Wokingham John Redwood asked the government to ‘to ensure that all our councillors who are over 70 can participate fully in council and committee meetings from their home using technology’. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said technology ‘had a huge role to play in helping people to get through this’.

But the existing legislation does not allow for this, and meetings will not be allowed to be held virtually until it is updated. It is also not clear if members of the public and press would be able to log on to the virtual meetings.