A KILWINNING councillor wants to see all council meetings filmed - after the Times were blocked from videoing inside the chamber.

Independent member Robert Steel has criticised the majority of his fellow North Ayrshire councillors for shooting down a media bid to film last Tuesday’s crunch full council meeting.

The motion - brought about by our sister title the Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald - sought to film and photograph proceedings at Cunninghame House.

But it was overwhelmingly quashed by councillors who voiced specific concerns about the editing of videos.

Irvine Councillor David O’Neill was quick off the mark to make his feelings known, proposing that only ‘establishing’ still photographs be taken as a compromise.

SNP Group leader, Councillor Willie Gibson, supported the Labour councillor saying his party had no objection to that.

As an amendment, however, Councillor Steel moved that the council allow filming to take place.

Only SNP councillors John Bruce and Tony Gurney backed him, however, with the other 23 councillors opting to vote down the motion to film.

The prospect of webcasting all council meetings - then welcomed by both Labour and SNP councillors - has been on the agenda since 2014 however no progress has been made with NAC blaming high costs.

Speaking after the meeting, Councillor Steel said he won’t be putting the issue to one side.

“I’m a strong supporter of it and I’ve got absolutely nothing to hide,” he said.

“This might be something we could be able to build on.

“I think what a lot of people are missing that this is an opportunity to generate a wider interest in the council if people are able to view it online.”

Councillor Steel added: “I’m involved with Kilwinning Community Council and we tape everything so that there’s transparency.

“We should only be saying things that are appropriate for our constituents anyway.

“I’ll certainly be encouraging my fellow independents to support this, it’s important for democracy.”

Speaking after the meeting the SNP group clarified their concerns regarding recording the proceedings of the council meeting. Councillor Tony Gurney said, “The SNP group are in fully in favour of live, unedited broadcasting of council meetings.

"Indeed, during the renovations of Cunninghame House we ensured that the technical infrastructure necessary to do so was added to the council chamber. To back this up, at the last budget we included a budget line to fund this innovation.

“Unfortunately that fund was removed by councillors from another group. The concern regarding the recording of the last council meeting was purely in terms of the proposal to show only edited excerpts from the proceedings. There was a concern that these would not give the full context of the proceedings.”

Asked why he had voted in favour of the proposal to allow the recording Councillor Gurney said, “I had hoped to show some of the other members that public scrutiny was not to be feared but instead to be welcomed.

“While there was the possibility of misrepresentation I considered that this was outweighed by the genuine public interest in the meeting.

“This position was unfortunately not shared by the majority Labour group who proposed the motion to not allow any recordings whatsoever.”