Council's packed diary after double election hiatus

Councillors, council officers and, if truth be told, Local Democracy Reporters in Swindon have a busy July coming up.

As soon as the general election is over and counted, meetings at Swindon Borough Council will start again in earnest.

There are 16 meetings across the month. Big hitters include a cabinet meeting (where all the real decisions are taken) on Wednesday 17 and full council (where a lot of talking goes on) on Thursday 25.

There’s a choice to be made on Monday 15 with two meetings clashing at 6pm: the corporate overview & scrutiny committee goes head-to-head with a Licensing sub-committee.

The council’s planning committee will convene on Tuesday 9, and the first meeting of the newly set-up children’s and adults’ overview & scrutiny committee will take place on Wednesday 24.

There are two reasons why July is such a packed month. Meetings were supposed to start again in late May and June after a month's break in April before the local elections on May 2.

But the announcement of the general election on Thursday meant that meetings with a political or policy element, which does not include the regulatory planning and licensing committees, were again put off for six weeks.

And the council tends not to schedule most of its committee meetings for August to allow councillors and officers to take time off in the school holiday period.