From the press bench to Zoom - a career covering parish council meetings

With the work of parish councils having been brought to the fore by that viral video of Jackie Weaver, Nub News regional editor Philip Evans recalls a long career on the press bench and how things are changing with the rise of virtual meetings.

In a long career in journalism I've covered local government from the smallest parish meeting in Devon to the first time the BNP won a seat on Tower Hamlets Council in East London, a story that made all the national papers.

I hate to think how many hours I have sat on the press bench at local council meetings. It's probably thousands.

With the demise of so many local papers, reporters are a rare sight at council meetings. In recent times, in a bid to ensure the public knows what goes on at their town hall, the BBC agreed to the financing of what is known as Local Democracy Reporters who are assigned to regional newspapers but with a brief to provide their reports to all media, including outlets such as Nub News.

This works to a degree but the Local Democracy Reporters work at county and district level in this part of Devon and don't attend the parish and town councils that govern small towns.

That is the home of real community journalism and much of what happens goes unreported.

Actually, an unexpected benefit of lockdown for the press is reporters being able to sit in on meetings conducted by Zoom and record proceedings. This meant that Nub News were able to cover two meetings that clashed this week – Axminster Town Council and Colyton Parish Council – at the same time.

Most councillors can't wait to return to the days when they met in public but there is a train of thought that advocates more meetings via video links because it may encourage more council tax payers to take a greater interest in local affairs, and it may even encourage more youngsters to seek election. (Congratulations to Ollie Tucker, aged 18, who has become the youngest town councillor in Axminster. I hope his views are treated with respect and that he stays the course).

I must admit that not all meetings are so entertaining as Handforth Parish Council when the chairman and vice-chairman were thrown out of the Zoom meeting after an astonishing display of anger and insults, by an official of Cheshire Local Councils Association, Jackie Weaver, who had been brought in to sort out the village's dysfunctional council.

The video of this extraordinary clash went viral with Jackie Weaver becoming an overnight sensation. Just watching the indignation of those she was banning from the meeting became compulsive viewing for people like me who have witnessed many instances of bad behaviour from those who should know better.

It was inevitable, I suppose, that when Axminster Town Council met on Monday evening that someone purporting to be 'Jackie Weaver' joined the Zoom meeting, although she or he did not reveal their true identity. Will she appear again at the next Guildhall meeting, I ask myself?

Just imagine how many are going to try and register on Zoom for the next meeting of Handforth Parish Council to see if the irate members who have made such a fool of themselves will recover their decorum.

My first time on the press bench

Very few reporters, particular the youngsters, enjoy covering council meetings. I was 17 when I attended my first one as a cub reporter on the Exeter-based Express & Echo, covering Axminster Rural District Council at Oak House in Chard Road, where the formidable Donald Baker ruled supreme.

I remember feeling hugely nervous sat alongside the doyen of local reporters, Wally Fellender, a journalistic hero of mine, who looked after the Axminster patch for Pulman's Weekly News throughout the war years until his retirement in the 1960s. A few years later I was to succeed him.

Wally was hugely respected for his knowledge of local affairs, so much so, in fact, that I recall chairman Donald Baker asking him for his opinion on a matter the council was discussing.

I was in awe of D.F. Baker. Not long after I started reporting he summoned me (it wasn't an invitation but an instruction) to The Tannery in Colyton, which he owned. He gave me a real dressing down because I had referred to Colyton as a village in a story I had written for the Echo. He ordered me never to do that again. "Colyton is a town, not a village, and don't you forget it," was the tone he adopted.

I left The Tannery with my tail between my legs and determined I would never make that mistake again. The following week, Colyton won Devon's Best Kept VILLAGE competition. Now how do you go about reporting that?

Local government 'needs a legion of Jackie Weavers'

I have a huge respect for the citizens of Colyton. They have one of the most lively and pro-active village (sorry town) communities in Devon. When they put their mind to something, they all pull together. Colyton Carnival is a great example of this. And is there a town hall in Devon that hosts more fundraising coffee mornings than Colyton?

But the behaviour of some of their councillors in recent times has left a lot to be desired, which I am sure prompted one of their members, Paul Arnott – who is also now leader of the independently-run East Devon District Council, having kicked out the Tories after 40 years of domination – to comment in his column in another newspaper that local government needed "a whole legion" of Jackie Weavers.

He wrote: "Like Jackie Weaver, I have absolutely zero personal political ambition. I have ended up leading the district council, but I don't harbour dreams of becoming an MP or world domination – all I have ever wanted is for councils to run kindly, impartially, truthfully and according to their codes of conduct."

And he continued: "One serious side to this is that if we don't make sure that is how councils do operate, it puts off good people from becoming involved. My own parish council (Colyton) has had a difficult history and frankly still carries some stigma of that. Today there is just one woman on a council of 13 and, at the age of 59, I am in the youth wing."

Colyton Parish Council did make some progress this week, agreeing to record and broadcast its virtual meetings to the public in future, which may go some way in improving behaviour and debate.

Cllr Arnott finished his column by saying the Jackie Weavers of this world are our best chance to stop "a lot of self-interested men with anger management issues utterly dominating the civic lives of our communities".

Jackie Weaver – I salute you. If ever you are in Devon…