ANY members of the public watching the BCP full council meeting on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning must be wondering what the local democratic process has come to.

A six hour meeting lasting until 1am – confusing, repetitive, unwieldy and unworkable.

It must be perfectly clear to all by now that this authority as constituted is not fit for purpose.

BCP Council cannot operate with so many councillors.

It is behemoth, too large to be able to work in a proper democratic fashion.

Too many people speak for too long and effectively say nothing, others line up one after another to say the same thing. Tuesday night’s agenda was too long, and there needs to be a time limit on council meetings after which unresolved business should be deferred.

If councillors and council officers are expected to be in a meeting until 1am how on earth are they expected to be fit for work the following day?

Quite obviously better agenda management is needed and more extraordinary meetings to deal with major policy decisions.

Tuesday’s meeting almost certainly turned the council into a laughing stock, the only saving grace being that probably only a very few people stayed the course.

This is all on top of the fact that such a large authority cannot and does not work effectively for the disparate communities that constitute it, which is part of the reason that Christchurch has commissioned its own independent report on the planning system and how it functions.

There are many people still questioning the wisdom of this huge authority.

Returning to the three previous councils is clearly not an option now, just two years after the creation of the BCP.

But at least the previous constituent authorities operated in a much more democratic way, serving their communities and actually cooperating with each other.

Cllrs Lesley Dedman, David Flagg, Nick Geary, Paul Hilliard

Simon McCormack, Margaret Phipps

Christchurch Independent Group

BCP Council