Giggling in the gallery leads to council meeting being adjourned

Story from Anttoni James Numminen of the Local Democracy Reporting service.

A full meeting of Scarborough Council had to be adjourned twice due to interruptions from members of the public.

Less than 10 minutes into tonight’s full meeting of Scarborough Council (Monday November 7] the mayor was forced to adjourn.

The incident followed a discussion about the scrapped plans for a £15m hotel complex at the site of Scarborough’s former indoor swimming pool.

“Alright pal, are you done?

Cllr Bill Chatt was in the process of asking a question about the council leader’s statement regarding the scrapped plans for the four-star plus hotel and the way in which information about it had been made public.

The leader of the council, Cllr Steve Siddons, who described Cllr Chatt’s statement as “absolute rubbish”, was in the process of giving a full response when there was an interruption.

At this point the mayor, Cllr Eric Broadbent asked Cllr Siddons to pause while he dealt with the issue.

Cllr Broadbent said: “Would the members of the public please stop what you are doing or I’ll have to adjourn the meeting”

Referring to members of the public, he stated: “If you’re not interested, could you please leave?” An ultimatum of “half a minute” was given to those in the public gallery.

The mayor then said: “Alright pal, are you done? Right, I’m going to adjourn the meeting for 10 minutes.”

A Cllr in the chamber stated loudly: “Absolutely pathetic!”

Following an adjournment, the council meeting was reconvened, however, less than two minutes into the proceedings another interruption followed.

Cllr Siddons was about to continue his answer to Cllr Chatt when the Mayor adjourned the meeting again due to loud “giggling” from the gallery.

Cllr Broadbent, the mayor, said: “I cannot accept any giggling or talking going on, so I am going to adjourn the meeting for a further five minutes.”

Upon reconvening after the second adjournment, the mayor called for the meeting to be conducted in “an orderly manner” and said if there was “further hindrance to the democratic proceedings” he would clear the public gallery of those causing disruption.

It was agreed that Cllr Siddons would provide a written response to Cllr Chatt’s question and the remainder of the meeting proceeded without further interruptions.