Neighbouring luddite authorities need to ‘catch up’ on remote work – senior councillors ‘refuse’ to travel to certain meetings

Senior councillors have criticised other councils for lagging behind in holding virtual meetings.

The Executive Board meeting yesterday, held in a hybrid format in Wrexham’s Guildhall, was discussing and approving a report that will see councillors and officers go greener on travel – with people challenged to assess ‘if there is a need to travel in the first place’ before making a journey (more here).

Cllr Hugh Jones spoke of his own adapted working method, and a more hardline approach to needless travel, “I have made reference verbally to the chief executive previously about neighbouring authorities, and we’ve got a number of neighbouring authorities who refuse or do not hold meetings, partnership meetings, by either Zoom or Teams when it’s perfectly acceptable to do so.

“I think we need to continue to apply those pressures to other local authorities. I’ve not been attending a number of meetings because I refused to travel a significant distance for a relatively short meeting that could have been perfectly adequate hosted on Zoom.

“So, congratulations to Wrexham Council for the work that has been done, and let’s apply pressure to those neighbouring authorities who seem to me need to catch up.”

Council Leader Mark Pritchard echoed the comments, “Cllr David A Bithell and I, excuse the pun, have driven this because we have an understanding and belief that there’s savings, but also it can benefit the quality of the work life balance for officers and elected members.

“I’ll give you an example. I used to go to Cardiff, frequently, on the train. I used to spend a lot of time on the train just for a 45 minutes meeting with the Minister, and then I come back. I don’t do that anymore.

“You know, I go out of county very little now. I do everything virtually. I do the same on the regional meetings, so the WLGA I do it from the NDA, the economic ambition board, CJCs- it is endless.

“So if I can do it, most people and other members can do it, and other officers can do it.

“The frankness of it is we can’t declare a climate emergency, and then say ‘we’ve declared it now but we really don’t want to modernise, we don’t want to move forward, we don’t want to support the travel plan’.

“The travel plan here is to improve this council and take it forward. We all have to embrace it. ”