Liberal Democrats hail "victory for open government" over ruling Luton Local Plan meetings should be public

The local authority’s Liberal Democrat group was unhappy that the Luton Local Plan working party meetings were being held in private, with their agendas not publicly visible.

These plan reviews are a statutory responsibility for local planning authorities, and are meant to take place at least every five years from the date of their adoption. This ensures the plans remain up-to-date and relevant.

A review of Luton’s Local Plan is ongoing with a working party set up to examine where alterations and improvements need to be made, and what level of influence changes of direction in national policy have on the process.

At a behind closed doors meeting of the working party, the Liberal Democrats voted against everything being considered in private. But the Labour ruling group’s councillors were in favour of not making these gatherings public.

Liberal Democrat Barnfield councillor David Franks wrote to LBC’s monitoring officer Mark Turner asking: “Could you please explain what it is about the agenda for last night’s meeting that meant it had to be in secret?

“The person chairing the working party says it’s because the meetings are always in private. He said at the previous meeting it was because the items may change and people could become confused. Not a good enough reason.”

Mr Turner replied: “The meetings of the Local Plan working party should be held in public, with the only exception to this being where a report contains exempt information.

“This will be made clear on the agenda page, and you should move a resolution to go into private session only at the point where that report is to be considered.”

Responding to confirmation these meetings could be mostly in public, the Liberal Democrat group described it in a statement as “another victory for open government”.

“It added: “We now have a ruling that ‘it’s always done this way’ isn’t a good enough reason for taking a meeting in secret, so it’s always worth challenging when you believe a proposal to take a meeting in secret isn’t justified.

“Liberal Democrat members of this working party voted against the motion for secrecy, while the Labour members all voted in favour.”

SOURCE: Luton Borough Council Liberal Democrat group statement and email exchange, LBC monitoring officer email response, and archive material.