Dacorum Live and Direct - on YouTube
Last Wednesday night it finally became much easier to see what Dacorum is doing and how local decision-making works.
After some years of campaigning by Lib Dems, Dacorum took a step into the open by streaming "Full Council", 15th September 2021, live on YouTube.
The two-hour evening meeting saw brief verbal reports from the Deputy Leader of the Council and six Cabinet Portfolios, each followed by 10 minutes of questioning, with the other 43 Councillors asking pairs of "question and follow-up" to the Cabinet.
Then came the main event, with a debate opened by Lib Dem Co-Deputy Leader Cllr Adrian England, centred on the forthcoming Climate Conference COP26 and a proposal that Dacorum write to Ministers, to ask that Central Govt acts urgently on workforce shortages and scaling-up of plans for insulating more homes. Conservatives supported the Motion and Cabinet Portfolio-holder for Environment Cllr Graham Barrett seconded, so, unusually, there was unanimous agreement - important given the urgency and importance of the issue.
Cllr England said of the Motion: "We are facing a scaled-up 'train-crash' Climate Emergency, with global temperatures already higher than humans have ever faced. We need Govt to give national and international scale to the levers Dacorum will use to pull the brakes on CO2 before we derail."
You can watch the meeting back at
(COP26 Motion starts at 1hr 32min.)