TRACEY Simpson-Laing says the council was forced to receive the anti-fracking petition at the last council meeting (Right Procedures, Letters, July 24).
They were not forced to put it first on the agenda or to allow so much time that more important proceedings, especially the resignation call against Cabinet members, was squeezed into a few minutes.
Furthermore, no matter how infrequently the main hall may have been used for public meetings in the last 15 years, this is no excuse for denying members of the public the opportunity to properly observe important council meetings.
Microphones have been successfully set up in that chamber before and can be done again whenever a need arises.
What has never been done before is to employ Fire Regulations as a dubious device to issue a very limited number of tickets to the public gallery of the council chamber. At no time in the entire meeting were the public benches ever more than half full.
Labour seem desperate to limit any opportunity for citizens to witness at first hand a censure of their performance.
John Jones, Sand Hutton Manor, Sand Hutton.
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