SOMERSET County Council has granted itself emergency powers via Skype to help it deal with the coronavirus.

The council has become the second local authority in Somerset to formally decide to grant its chief executive and senior officers more powers to enable decisions to be made until committee meetings can be held again.

South Somerset District Council took the decision on March 19 through a vote with elected members at its council chamber in Yeovil.

The county council, meanwhile, arrived at the same position through a conference call – to which neither the press nor the public had any access.

The county council has said it will review the decision after three months.

The decision was originally intended to be taken by the full council at a meeting in Taunton on Friday (March 27) – but this was cancelled following Government advice.

Instead, council leader David Fothergill, chief executive Pat Flaherty and monitoring officer Scott Wooldridge held a Skype meeting with ‘a cross-party group of members’.

For the full story, see this week’s Wellington Weekly News.

Daniel Mumby

Local democracy reporter