Despite the reservations and the challenges, Councillor Mac Cafferty is keen to see a “return to normality”. He said: “When they are safe to do so, I want meetings in person once again, mainly because it will represent some welcome return to normality. “For me, the atmosphere is flat through screens – and atmosphere is key to democracy and good decision-making. “Being called into back-to-back online meetings from 8am to 7pm day after day is probably the fantasy of a programmer but it won’t make for good decision-making.” The former Labour leader of the council Daniel Yates said that he appreciated not having to travel but missed the informal communication and face-to-face contact, adding that working from home was isolating.
Vijeyaratnam Thivakaran, who runs the post office in Whitehawk Road, Brighton, plans to link two neighbouring buildings. One is the post office itself and the other is the grocers next door, on the corner of Bristol Gardens. His plans include demolishing the first floor of the corner store and turning it into a four-storey building. The end result is intended to be four modern flats instead of two outdated ones, while keeping the ground floor for commercial use. The plans were approved by Brighton and Hove City Council’s planning committee. Labour councillor Daniel Yates said: “This is not the prettiest of developments although it may be a lot prettier than what is there already.”
The legal threat is understood to have come from a Rise service user. The committee also received a report which said that a cross-party working group should have been set up in 2018 to oversee the commissioning process – but this never happened. Even if it had been set up, councillors would not have been involved in evaluating the contract bids and, the committee was told, procurement law required councils to select the best tender. The report said: “Awarding public contracts is tightly regulated to ensure all bidders are treated equally and to ensure the process is non-discriminatory and transparent. “It is unlawful to design a procurement to artificially narrow competition.
Comments by Conservative councillor Joe Miller were described as “balderdash” at an online meeting yesterday. His comments came as councillors discussed whether to write to the government asking for a “right to food” to be made a legal right. He said Green and Labour councillors should have amended Brighton and Hove City Council’s recent budget if they wanted more money put into supporting those in food poverty. Councillor Miller said he was quoting a volunteer at the Whitehawk Food Bank. He said: “Her view is that some people who use that food bank – and this is pre-Covid, granted, and this is not me saying this – have their priorities wrong . That is sometimes the case.
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