Councillors get ready for their webcast close-up (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Cameras set to role at Hampshire County Council

2:00pm Monday 6th February 2012 in Local By Rachel Masker

LIGHTS, camera, action – councillors are gearing-up for the first televised meeting of Hampshire County Council.

Councillors were invited to a practice session at the end of last month before filming of the full council gets under way on February 23 when it will debate the budget for 2012-13, including a £45million package of cuts.

Conservative council bosses say televising meetings will boost local democracy, but opposition Liberal Democrat councillors have attacked it as “vanity spending”.

As previously reported, the project will cost £223,000, including installation of equipment in the grade II listed chamber and fees for a company to operate it.

County chiefs hope that taxpayers will use their computers to watch live or recorded videos of meetings on the council website.

Budget-setting meetings are usually marathon sessions of up to eight hours.

Councillor Keith House, leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition group, said: “This is vanity spending when the county Conser-vatives are slashing services to vulnerable people, hiking charges and axing more staff.”

But Conservative councillor Colin Davidovitz, executive member for communications and efficiency, said: “I am very pleased that at long last we have the facilities that will enable us to televise our council meetings and allow the people of Hampshire to watch, on their home computers or laptops, as their representatives debate local issues and decide on policies.”

Cllr Davidovitz said that the new facilities would make the conference chamber more attractive for outside organisations to hire, generating extra funds.