AN EXPERIENCED member of Wellington Town Council has said it is “embarrassing” when not enough councillors attend a committee meeting in order to make formal decisions.

Cllr Andy Govier was left disappointed when the council’s planning meeting on June 2 became just an informal discussion when only four councillors turned up - meaning the committee was not quorate and therefore unable to make any official recommendations or comments.

“It is extremely disappointing that we have only got four councillors here,” said Cllr Govier.

“It is becoming increasingly problematic to get committees quorate. We can appeal to councillors’ better nature and ask them to turn up.”

Cllr Govier suggested that the council could look at making the various committees smaller in number in order to – hopefully - make them quorate.

The town council’s planning committee should have nine members, but so far only six councillors have put themselves forward to sit on that group. And for the planning committee meeting to go-ahead as planned, it would need a maximum of five of those six councillors to attend.

So when just Cllrs Sue Fox, Andy Govier, Janet Lloyd and Steve Mercer attended on June 2 – chief executive and town clerk Dave Farrow said the committee could not go-ahead in formal session.

Chris Winter, of the West of England Developments, had also attended the meeting in order to speak to councillors about a number of planning developments.

And Cllr Govier said: “It is really embarrassing that we haven’t got enough councillors here to discuss things properly when representatives of planning applications are here.”

Councillors still heard from Mr Winter and were able to discuss items on the agenda, but all done on an informal basis.

They could not make any official recommendations on planning applications to Somerset Council as there were not enough councillors in attendance.