Policies and Procedures
Meetings
The Town Council holds or arranges the following meetings during the course of the municipal year (running from 1 April to 31 March).
Ordinary Meetings are the normal routine meetings of the Council, its Committees and Sub-Committees which deal with a full range of day to day business matters. These meetings are mostly held on Tuesday evenings and begin at 7:00pm.
Extraordinary Meetings or Special Meetings as the Town Council usually call them, are meetings arranged outside the normal meeting schedule to consider specific topics or issues that have arisen, sometimes at short notice. The agenda format for these meetings is different in that it doesn’t usually contain the routine and standard items that are listed for consideration at ordinary meetings.
The Annual Meeting is a meeting which must by law be held in the month of May. The Town Mayor and Deputy Town Mayor are appointed at this meeting.
The Town Council may set the date for an Annual Public Meeting on behalf of the Chairman of the Council, for the town electors which takes place between 1 March and 1 June.
Committees and Sub-Committees
The Town Council currently operates two committees, a General Purposes Committee and a Planning Consultative Committee, as well as four Sub-Committees (whose parent committee is the General Purposes Committee).
All Councillors are currently members of the General Purposes Committee and Planning Consultative Committee. The membership of these committees, including the Chairmen and Vice Chairmen, is determined at the Town Council’s Annual Meeting in May.
Membership of the sub-committees, including the Chairmen and Vice Chairmen, are appointed annually at the General Purposes Committee in May.
The sub committees consist of seven members, or any other number as determined by the General Purposes Committee, drawn from the membership of the Town Council. In addition, the Town Mayor and the Chairman of the General Purposes Committee are ex-officio members of all committees and sub-committees as set out in Standing Orders.
Both committees and sub-committees appoint working groups which confirm their membership annually at the first meeting of each committee or sub-committee, after the General Purposes Committee in May.
