Follow the council’s decisions as they happen this Wednesday (4 April 2012)

You can keep up to date with Shropshire Council’s Cabinet meetings from the comfort of your own home – or indeed wherever you are – by following the council’s live twitter updates.

The decisions and discussions at Cabinet meetings are now ‘tweeted’ as they happen, meaning the meetings are thrown open to the public to an extent not possible just a couple of years ago.

Cabinet meetings are open to the public (although most meetings have a closed session at the end for confidential reports if they relate to sensitive financial data for instance), but very few people have the time to turn up to the meetings at Shirehall unless there is a specific item on the agenda that interests them.

The next Cabinet meeting is this Wednesday (4 April 2012) and starts at 12.30pm.

By following the twitter updates, residents can receive up-to-the-minute commentary as decisions are made without having to make the effort to attend the meetings in person.

You can get the updates by following ShropLive on twitter here. 

Council leader, Keith Barrow, said:

“It’s absolutely essential that councils innovate and make the most of modern technology to improve the way they communicate with residents.  I appreciate it’s difficult for people to attend council meetings, which probably aren’t high on the list of things to do on a Wednesday afternoon, but I really feel it’s important for people to be aware of the decisions their council is making.

“The ShropLive account already has a few hundred followers but I would encourage as many people as possible to join in.  Twitter is great because it allows the kind of instant access to information that just wasn’t possible before.  By following ShropLive you can get information about the decisions we are making literally seconds after we vote on them, which I think is a fantastic development.”