Poor old TCW might still be frozen out of Wymondham Town Council meetings while their 6 month long YouTube streaming strike continues, but your beloved columnist is never one to disappoint when hosting. So, undeterred, TCW’s been working away feverishly in the kitchen since 9AM, slicing and dicing, removing giblets and getting ready to give the turkey a good old basting. So pull up one of your spare chairs from the shed, put on your paper crown and get a Rennie at the ready. It’s time to tuck in to your Town Council Watch Christmas dinner.

But can you get through it all?

Aah! Busto

But first, a joke from TCW’s poundshop cracker: Q. Why didn’t the chicken get the bus? A. Because it was scared of crossing the B1172.

Hmm. Who writes these things? They get worse every year.

Throughout September to November, town councillors discussed the need for a new pedestrian crossing over the main road at the Albini Way bus stop.

According to County Councillor Robert Savage (Con), there had been three accidents there this year. A resident had launched a petition for something to be done.

An exasperated Cllr Michael Rosen (Lab) reported that a disinterested County Council had previously horseradished building a crossing because “there weren’t enough people crossing the road”.

If you build it they will come.

But with the cost of installing a button operated crossing estimated at a trouser waist stretching £150,000, the scheme was too large to be funded by the Town Council.

Maybe the people who daubed an England flag over the Melton Road mini roundabout could paint one on? They do this sort of stuff for free.

Eventually the solution became clear: the Town Council would send a strongly worded letter to County Hall.

Find The Leek

After TCW managed to print a word-by-word account of what councillors said in a supposedly behind-closed-doors session about stopping the public being able to watch their meetings on YouTube, it seems TCW’s explanation that he’d lubed himself up in goose fat and snuck into the council’s ventilation shafts to eavesdrop wasn’t buttering any parsnips with the authority.

October’s meeting instead revealed the council had appointed an internal spook catcher to find out who had leaked what was termed CONFIDENTIAL COUNCIL INFORMATION, after sensational top-secret data like councillors’ justifications for their decisions somehow got out to the public.

The horror! Still, fun for the council to be writing reports into TCW for once, instead of the other way round.

The investigation even commissioned a ‘'cyber security report’ from an IT company at a cost of £285, which concluded there was “No evidence of hacking, unauthorised access, or breach of the Council’s internal systems”.

Phew. Lord only knows what would happen if the Kremlin got hold of Town Council files.

Mayor Dave Roberts (Lib Dem) delivered a stern speech towards any councillors or staff thinking of leaking meetings to the press in future - you know the kind of leaks, ones that would allow TCW to keep quoting the precise words councillors say. Here’s what he said:

“The seriousness of this situation cannot be overstated ..[].. breaching this principle undermines the integrity of our governance, process and potentially exposes the council to reputational and legal risk.”

Reputational risk? Perish the thought, dear reader. TCW wishes them all the best cracking the case.

Burning The Turkey Evidence

Now, despite refusing to live stream their meetings currently, the Town Council has actually still been recording their sessions in the background, as Mayor Dave Roberts reassured one resident online:

“...meetings are still being recorded should anyone want a viewable version. As Chair of WAG (Wymondham Access Group), disabled people will still have [the] opportunity to view the meeting.”

Phew. TCW would hate to see the council’s pledge to promote accessibility issues in town broken...

But after receiving 7 Freedom Of Information (FOI) requests to view videos, the Mayor’s promise and the recordings could soon be going up in flames quicker than the brandy on your Christmas pudding.

At October’s Finance & Governance committee, councillors rushed out a raft of new policies to rapidly delete video recordings, before the pesky public could ever get their dirty mitts on them.

Cllr Lucy Nixon (Lib Dem) even took time to praise the Town Clerk “for the sheer volume of work that’s gone into this agenda. I know she’s been working extra hours to get this done.”

The policies mean that once a recording has been used to help the Clerk write up minutes, it will now be immediately deleted.

“So as soon as they’re drafted that’s it!” Cllr Julian Fulcher (Lib Dem) declared licking his lips, before later interjecting three times to ensure the wording guaranteed the soonest possible deletions.

But why the rush? Cue the Clerk to explain all:

“Don’t forget that if we receive an FOI, the procedure is that we’ve got 20 days to respond - that recording is gone within the 20 days, because I've already typed the minutes.”

Oh right. Clever.

But Cllr Paul Barrett (Green) had concerns about the impact on disabled people:

“If you draft the minutes the following day, then you delete the recordings, if anyone wasn’t able to access the meeting because of disability, [they] wouldn’t be able to view the meeting.”

Anyone would think stopping people watching was the intention...

We were then treated to a prawn cocktail of reasons why it was actually just so terribly difficult for the council to physically share videos with the public, in a series of explanations whiffier than your dad's Brussels sprouts farts.

First it was all to do with storage space at the council and transferring large files “because it’s 4K, it’s big, they’re not like normal mp3 or whatever”.

Then it was all about guarding the privacy of members of the public, who’d turned up to a public meeting and contributed during public participation. They’d need their “faces blurred” and “white noise” dubbing over what they said.

“Could we give them a warning that this is being recorded?” Cllr Roly Frosdick (Lib Dem) helpfully asked, to no particular avail.

Next it was the threat of released recordings being edited with AI:

“AI is scary” the Clerk warned, who’d apparently seen “altered” videos. “You just don’t want that for the council.”

Ah. Maybe that video where the Queen turned up to a Town Council meeting on a jet-ski wasn’t real after all.

And last but not least, if streaming ever did resume, it was storage space concerns again:

“...everything that’s been recorded will have to be removed, because there’s not enough storage on YouTube.”

Heavens. Someone needs to tell the global technology company they need to buy some more floppy disks.

If editing videos was required, Cllr Annette James (Lib Dem) had an entrepreneurial idea at least:

“..[]...we should be charging people who want the video.”

Oh it's all come a long way since “as councillors wishing to be as open and transparent as possible” hasn't it?

Cold Leftovers

They say the average argument on Christmas day starts at 10:13am. But having given town centre improvement plans the nod in November, town councillors then got in a ding dong over the not-so-trifling matter of which type of new bus stop to put on Market Place.

“Have you been in a cantilever bus shelter?!” Cllr Peter Broome (Con) blurted over the table, who wanted to reject a Norfolk County Council offer to build one outside Co-op in favour of a fancier bus stop next to the Cross Keys. “They offer no protection at all apart from if it’s raining from above!”

But with town councillors worried about “residents shivering away outside the Co-op all winter”, they opted instead to have County Council design them a bespoke shelter.

Fancy. TCW’s already looking forward to proudly showing Kevin McCloud around it.