NO Change at the top for Dorset Council – the council’s senior roles are all to stay the same for another year.

The council’s annual meeting, held on Tuesday evening, voted the entire Conservative Cabinet back in – together with chair Val Pothecary and council vice chair Mike Parkes.

Cllr Spencer Flower, who has been council leader since May 2019 when the unitary council came into being, said he remained committed to his first year election pledge to be bold and ambitious and to gain the benefits from combining previous councils into one.

He praised staff and councillors who he said had done a ‘fantastic job’ to support the county through what he described as the unprecedented times of Covid.

Cllr Flower said he would continue to work cross-party although when the council vice-chair role was contested by Weymouth Lib Dem’ Howard Legg he lost 47-29 to Conservative Mike Parkes.

The meeting agreed a recommendation to continue meeting virtually with powers delegated to senior officers to enact committee and council decisions. These will be passed as ‘minded to’ decisions until further changes are made in the law.

Cllr Flower said he was disappointed by the Government’s decision not to allow virtual meetings to continue as they had been and said he hoped the Government would listen to council leaders up and down the country and allow online meetings to continue.

The council’s legal officer, Jonathan Mair, said officers could not be tied to having to stick to ‘minded to’ decisions if they thought the committee, or full council, was wrong -  but said he found it inconceivable that an officer would go against a ‘minded to’ decision.

Dorchester independent councillor Les Fry said he was also disappointed by the Government’s decision to, effectively, end virtual meetings. He said that Dorset Council, like others, had no spaces big enough for all councillors to meet whilst complying with the current Covid restrictions, although this may change if restrictions are lifted in the third week of June.

Despite praise for virtual meetings the evening was marked by a number of councillors unable to vote electronically for technical reasons.