Lionlink and the upcoming Parish Council meeting on 11th September
Not everyone may be familiar with how a Parish Council conducts business and given the strength of feeling on the proposed Lionlink project I am providing the following guidance to provide clarity on how the meeting on 11th September will be conducted with regard to this topic:
- The meeting will take place, as publicly published, at 7PM in the Heritage Hut - councillors have already been summoned to this place at this time to hold the meeting
- As per all meetings of Walberswick Parish Council this meeting is open for the public to attend either in person or remotely (via Zoom). Anybody who wishes to attend remotely should email: andrew.wpcouncillor@gmail.com BEFORE 6PM on the day of the meeting for connection details
- As a number of attendees interested in Lionlink are anticipated, please be aware that there is limited seating and standing room in the Heritage Hut, so attendance via Zoom may be more convenient
- The only part of a Parish Council meeting at which the Public may speak is the Public Forum which will last a maximum of 15 minutes and a maximum of 3 minutes per person (less if more than 5 people indicate they would like to speak)
- The Council will only consider in the meeting items on the published agenda, although members of the public are welcome to suggest items for future agendas
- Lionlink is on the agenda for the meeting on 11th September for a specific reason - the Council can only take action on things it has formally resolved to do and it can only resolve to do things related to agenda items. The Parish Council will (of course) be producing a response to the consultation currently underway and (without pre-empting what the will of the Council may turn out to be) I anticipate that the Council will delegate to one or more Councillors the task of preparing a draft response to be considered by Councillors at its next meeting on 16th October, as it has done many times before with such consultations - beyond this, there will be no further debate on Lionlink at the September meeting
- The Parish Council has no knowledge of Lionlink beyond that available to the Public
- The next key date remains 23rd September when the Public consultation takes place in Walberswick Village hall between 10AM & 4PM. Everyone is strongly encouraged to attend (or another event if not available on 23rd) because that is where there is the opportunity to put all of the many questions we all have to the project team themselves. While it is absolutely vital that as many people as possible make their views known to the project team, everyone is encouraged to only do this after attending the public consultation, so the key arguments can be based all available facts. The current round of consultation will close to responses on Friday 3rd November 2023
Andrew Lewis
Chair, Walberswick Parish Council