Members of Wellington Town Council will not be holding face-to-face meetings together anytime soon.

Full council meetings were suspended at the start of the Covid-19 lockdown but monthly ‘virtual’ online video call meetings resumed in July.

Cllr John Thorne, at the latest council meeting, urged that ‘physical’ meetings should be held once again at the usual town centre venue.

He said: “If we can have several thousands of people in High Street and South Street for the food festival, then I think we can get 15 people – or 18 people, including staff – into the United Reformed Church (URC) church hall.”

He said he was attending a parish council meeting the next day with councillors present and a number of other parish councils were talking about doing the same as village halls re-opened.

Wellington Mayor Cllr Janet Lloyd said the issue of physical meetings had been brought up at a recent Somerset West and Taunton full council meeting and the monitoring officer said the guidance was still not to meet. “I cannot see how we can fit 15 councillors, several staff and perhaps 12 members of the public plus three or four press into that small room,” she added.

Cllr Lloyd said her parish council at Sampford Arundel had held two ‘physical’ meetings but the Parish Room there was larger than the URC church hall and fewer people attended, so social distancing was easy.

Cllr Nancy Powell-Brace said she would never want to see the town council breach an instruction but was less than convinced by the guidance. “There are schools across the country with 16 pupils all facing the front in a room a lot smaller than the URC’s,” she said.

Cllr Ross Henley said he would love to get back meeting face-to-face as the novelty of video conferencing was wearing off but the church hall made social distancing impossible for everyone who would attend.

Cllr Wayne Battishill wondered why the council could not look at larger premises for meeting, such as Court Fields School, but Cllr Lloyd said the monitoring officer’s guidance applied even to larger venues.

Town clerk Kathryn Hemensley said someone would have to deep clean a venue before and after a physical meeting. She added: “While the Government guidance is to carry on meeting remotely I do not want to be the person who calls a meeting that results in someone getting poorly and potentially losing their life. I don’t want that risk on my shoulders.”