Long welcomes decision to put Castlereagh minutes on website

Castlereagh Central Alliance Councillor Michael Long has welcomed the Council’s decision to provide its minutes on the Council website after a personal campaign over several years. He believes that the move will increase openness and transparency for ratepayers. The decision will initially see minutes being published from the current electoral term once clarification is sought on how other Councils operate their website publication schemes.

Cllr. Long, who previously successfully campaigned to have Councillor allowances listed on the website, expressed frustration at how long it had taken for the publication decision to be taken.

Cllr. Long said, “I think that it is important that ratepayers are able to know what decisions are taken by the Council and feel that this decision will help increase openness and transparency as the minutes of Council meetings will be available for ratepayers to see on the Council website. Many other local Councils, including Belfast and Lisburn, have been doing this for some time and it is frustrating that it has taken so long for this decision to have been made.

“Given the apparent well publicised recent difficulties that many in the press had in accessing minutes, it is good that both they and ratepayers will be able to access them by a press of a button rather than by hours of searching.”

ENDS