When will the postponed Royal Borough council meeting take place?

A postponed council meeting will now take place in September after initial concerns it would be rescheduled with less than a week’s notice.

Councillors were due to meet at Maidenhead Town Hall on Tuesday, July 19 to discuss a lengthy agenda before the summer break.

However, just hours prior to the meeting, it was called off due to the extreme temperatures inside the town hall during that week’s heatwave.

Although many councillors on social media agreed with the decision to postpone, some were less thrilled when it emerged the meeting would be rescheduled for the following Wednesday (July 27).

Cllr Catherine del Campo (Lib Dem, Furze Platt) said: “The reason we agree the dates a year in advance is so that we can make reasonable adjustments to be there.

“Obviously the heatwave couldn’t be avoided but a week’s notice during school holidays just isn’t fair - it disproportionately disenfranchises those with school-age children and their residents.”

Under the council’s constitution, an amendment to the programme of ordinary meetings can only take place if councillors agree at a meeting; this happened in April 2021, when councillors agreed to move an ordinary meeting forward so it could be held via Zoom prior to a change in legislation.

Whilst some meetings – such as the Borough Local Plan adoption of February 8 – are held as ‘extraordinary’ meetings, these can only be held in exceptional circumstances where the item(s) on the agenda is a matter of urgency.

Furthermore, a new meeting requires councillors to be ‘summoned’ at least five working days prior to the proposed date, which was not possible given the timeframe.

On Thursday, head of governance at RBWM Karen Sheppard confirmed to the Advertiser that the agenda for the postponed meeting will be debated at the Tuesday, September 27 meeting of full council.

She added that members of the public who submitted a question to councillors have been given the option of either asking their supplementary question in-person at September’s meeting, or in writing to the relevant lead member where the answer will be published on the agenda of the July 19 meeting.