South Hams District Council has confirmed that it will continue to hold council meetings to enable essential decisions to be made.

Revised procedural rules were adopted by the council last week to allow them to meet virtually and continue making decisions, but that the threshold for a meeting to be held would have to be ‘high’.

But some councillors were left unhappy with the proposals and said that they were akin to ‘shutting down democracy’ and looked like a ‘power grab’, accusations denied by senior officials.

Thursday’s full council meeting, though, began with Cllr Judy Pearce, leader of the council, announcing a revised schedule of meetings for essential business to be discussed, with 10 meetings in the diary until the end of July.

Cllr Pearce said: “It was always my intention to continue with meetings that are necessary to enable the council to go about its business.

“This schedule of meetings demonstrates that commitment and our continued drive to provide essential services while responding to the pandemic.

“This schedule enables us to move council business forward, but recognises that many of our staff are still working on the response to the pandemic, and will also be required as we move into the recovery phase.  It provides a good balance.”

Meetings after July will continue to be held but no schedule has yet been published, with the frequency of the meetings to depend on how controlled the coronavirus epidemic is, with Cllr Pearce adding: “If things improve, we will add more meetings, but we don’t have a crystal ball and we don’t know how it will run its course.

“Contrary to what has been said about our democracy recently, our new ways of working, the decisions we made at full council last week and this schedule of meetings, will enable us to continue to operate essential council business under these difficult circumstances.

“We have taken into consideration the capacity of the staff, the response we are providing, the recovery work we will need to do and cross party member involvement, and I believe that we have reached a sensible solution that satisfies all of these requirements.”

The programme is concentrating on essential business, and every meeting which is programmed to take place is required for a specific reason:

June 10, Development Management Committee, date reserved for urgent applications that cannot be decided under delegated powers

June 14, Overview and Scrutiny Committee, to debate the report on the council’s response to COVID-19 and draft strategic recovery plan.

June 18, Executive, to discuss the report on the council’s response to COVID-19 and draft strategic recovery plan, budget monitoring, mid-term financial strategy and commercial investment.

June 22, Salcombe Harbour Board, draft accounts.

June 25, Audit Committee, risk register, internal audit and external audit interim report

July 8, Development Management, date reserved for urgent applications that cannot be decided under delegated powers

July 16, Special Council, moved to accommodate the update to council on climate change and any decisions on commercial investment from Executive on 18 June

July 16, Overview and Scrutiny, if there is urgent business to discuss

July 23, Audit Committee, draft accounts

July 30, Executive, to discuss homelessness strategy and budget monitoring

Additional items could be added to any of the agendas, but Steve Mullineaux, acting chief executive, said that it would have to be something significant and urgent that needed to be discussed.

But a bid by opposition councillors to reinstate the ability to ask questions and propose notices of motion was lost.

Cllr John Birch, one of the main critics of the procedure rules, said that it was ‘right and proper’ that Overview and Scrutiny meetings would be held and that it was a welcome move that meetings would be held, but that the provision to ask questions and put forward motions should be reinstated.

Cllr Joseph Rose added: “It would not take up any more officer time for them to answer questions publicly than if you send them an email that they answer.”

But Cllr Pearce said: “I was clear we were not suppressing democracy but to limiting meeting to essential business, and questions and motion are heavy on officer time that they do not have.”

Cllr Nicky Hopwood added: “Our next full council meeting is July 25 and I hope by then we may be a lot further down the line in getting back to business as usual and by then we might be able to take motions. These temporary measures won’t be here forever.”

She asked that following comments made on social media and by some opposition councillors about the decision made at last week’s meeting over the temporary procedural rules, if the council had been contacted by any member of the public about whether the procedural rules were undemocratic.

Mr Mullineaux said that had one member of public had written to the Dartmouth councillors, and then a Totnes councillor had written in opposition to the council, but that was all he was aware of who had directly contacted South Hams District Council with any concerns.

Councillors voted by 14 votes to 13 against Cllr Birch’s proposal to reinstate the right to ask questions and propose motions.