Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council to delay staging AGM until September

Currently the First Citizen is DUP councillor Alderman John Smyth.

His deputy is Sinn Fein Councillor Anne Marie Logue.

The Local Government (Northern Ireland) Act states that the council Annual General Meeting must take place in June.

However, this year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, councils are permitted to postpone their annual meeting up to September 30 and hold other meetings as they consider necessary.

The proposal by Glengormley DUP representiative, Alderman Phillip Brett to defer the election of a new mayor and deputy was passed by 31 votes to nine.

Alliance, SDLP and Sinn Fein councillors were opposed to the date change.

Alliance group leader Cllr Billy Webb said: “My group would have preferred that the AGM is held as normal.

“I think there is a phenomenal amount of work to be done by this council.”

He also called for committee meetings to be re-established reiterating that there is “so much work to be done”.

SDLP Cllr Roisin Lynch said that her group believes that the AGM should take place on June 1 to enable the “normality of local democracy” to continue.

She pointed out that councillors have had eight to 10 weeks to adjust to a new “normal”, so she felt that the practice of holding an AGM on June 1 would be “appropriate”.

She suggested that there may be a “conflict of interest” with regard to pecuniary benefit by waiting until September to hold the AGM.

Ald Brett said that the DUP group accepted an amendment in relation to the reinstitution of committees but not in relation to the date of the AGM.

He commented that he had not heard Cllr Lynch or anyone else raise the subject of pecuniary interest previously.

Alderman Mark Cosgrove (UUP) noted: “It makes commonsense to try to re-establish the committee structure and to look at better technology for meetings.”

Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council proceeded to vote to restore meetings of its committees and to introduce a webcam to film proceedings.

A statement issued by the Alliance group after the meeting said: “Our Alliance team is pleased to have made some headway at tonight’s meeting toward potentially getting council committee meetings functioning again, in order to assist and scrutinise the detail of decisions, and for the use of webcam at meetings to give our ratepayers the ability to scrutinise the detail of decisions on behalf of the ratepayer.”

Michelle Weir, Local Democracy Reporter