Sir – With the decision having now been taken, I wanted to write to ask how anyone can think it’s a good idea to allow councillors to tweet during council meetings (Worcester News, June 29).

When you’ve got your head buried in your Blackberry you’re not concentrating on the meeting.

The farce over the yellow warehouse that’s recently been put up [in Worcester] and councillors not knowing what colour they voted for shows what happens when they don’t pay attention.

No doubt those in favour speak of taking the meetings to the public, keeping people informed and giving them the chance to be involved without actually going along.

To that I say “tosh”. How can people understand the ongoing debate from an occasional one or two-line comment and from someone who is politically biased as well.

If people are really in favour of tweeting, and there’s a huge question mark over whether anyone would follow a council meeting this way, then has anyone suggested that it should be a council officer, someone unbiased, with the time to do it and crucially someone not involved in the meeting itself, who should do this.

I’m sure there are always a number of officers in attendance to take the minutes.

No, if councillors want to keep people informed the only way is to televise the meetings over the internet, thereby ensuring an unbiased and complete view of proceedings.

Of course, it would mean councillors couldn’t fall asleep or read a newspaper during meetings, but then you win some you lose some.

M HAWKER
Worcester