Omicron concern forces county council to cancel meeting but Peterborough meeting set to go ahead

Cambridgeshire County Council has today (December 14) announced that it has cancelled its Full Council meeting due to be held amid fears of rising numbers of the covid variant Omicron.

In a statement, a county council spokesperson said: “Fears about the effect of rising numbers of the new covid variant ‘omicron’ on Members, staff and residents who have not yet had their vaccination booster, and those vulnerable to poor Covid outcomes, have led to the cancellation of today’s full meeting of Cambridgeshire County Council.”

The meeting, due to take place at Burgess Hall in St Ives to allow as much social distancing as possible between the 61 elected members, members of the public and officers of the council running the meeting, was called off last night by Fiona McMillan, the council’s Monitoring Officer in consultation with Cllr Sebastian Kindersley, Vice-Chair of Council following the advice from Jyoti Atri, the area’s Director of Public Health.

“Omicron numbers are increasing rapidly nationally, with an estimated doubling time of 2-3 days.  A number of Omicron cases have been detected locally and we are seeing outbreaks in a number of settings.  We know that for every case detected, there are many more in the community,” said Ms Atri.

“Emerging research that was made public yesterday, as well as the national briefings I attended during yesterday afternoon, were indicating that two doses of vaccine do not offer sufficient protection.  Having considered this further in the light of that research and those briefings, I am concerned that large numbers of people will be meeting together for full council and that the meeting will include people who are vulnerable to poor Covid outcomes and may not yet have had their boosters.

“If the meeting is unable to proceed with fewer numbers, then consideration should be given to cancelling the meeting and conducting essential business through other means.”

“Having taken advice from our Monitoring Officer following advice from the Director of Public Health, we considered whether we could go ahead with a reduced number of Members present – just enough to make us legally ‘quorate’ as has been done in neighbouring counties.  But as we couldn’t get the necessary agreement, we came to the conclusion that cancelling Full Council was the wisest course of action,” said Cllr Sebastian Kindersley, Vice Chair of the Council.

“I know the Chairman of the Local Government Association is currently lobbying hard calling for urgent legislation to facilitate councils being able to host remote meetings again in light of the Omicron variant, and I would add my voice to calls for this to happen without delay,” he added.

Any time sensitive items on the agenda will be dealt with under Chief Officer’s delegated powers.

There are no plans yet for Peterborough City Council to follow suit. Councillors will therefore attend the Extraordinary Full Council meeting scheduled for Thursday evening (December 16) unless told otherwise.