Councillors have voted against webcasting more meetings – saying that people would 'rather watch paint dry'.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council currently broadcasts cabinet, full council and planning committee meetings on its website, allowing members of the public to watch proceedings from the comfort of their own homes.

But new figures show that some recent meetings had as few as 11 viewers watching live – although most had over 100 archive views.

Members of the strategy and resources scrutiny committee discussed the current webcasting system and the potential for using it to broadcast more meetings.

But most committee members were against the idea, saying there is little evidence the public wants to watch more council meetings.

At the moment, the city council does not webcast any scrutiny committee meetings, unlike other Staffordshire authorities such as Newcastle Borough Council.

Committee chair Dan Jellyman suggested there could be occasions where public interest in a particular issue would justify webcasting a scrutiny committee.

He said: "What we do should be easily accessible. The days of having packed public galleries are gone. But I know there is a small cohort of dedicated people who like to watch cabinet, council and planning.

"I know other local authorities broadcast scrutiny committees, like we did during Covid. All of the committee rooms have the tech installed because of Covid.

"When you have petitions come forward and you have a lot of residents turn up there may be merit in saying that on this occasion the meeting will be webcast."

But Cllr Laura Carter argued that increased the number of webcast meetings would be a 'waste of resource'.

She said: "I can't see that people would care about watching scrutiny committees, to be honest.

"As a participant in them I think that sometimes they can be really boring, but we're invested because it's what we do.

"I can't imagine someone sat at home with a brew and a biscuit watching us argue across a table. I would rather watch paint dry, to be honest."

The council has a contract with Public-i for webcasting its meetings, and while using YouTube would be a free alternative, broadcasting more meetings would still have a cost impact due to officers being required to oversee the webcasts.

Cllr Andy Platt agreed that there is little justification for increasing the amount of webcasting.

He said: "It's disappointing that there's such a miniscule number of people watching any of the meetings. I definitely don't think we should expand it, due to the cost and complications.

"But I think webcasting full council, cabinet and planning meetings is worthwhile, if only for public recording purposes."

Cllr Platt's motion to recommend keeping the current webcasting arrangements was backed by the committee.

There are some of the most popular council meeting webcasts from the past year:

• City council meeting on June 5, 2025 – 151 live views – 229 archive views (this was a special civic city council meeting celebrating the centenary of Stoke-on-Trent gaining city status)
• City council meeting on January 23, 2025 – 119 live views – 337 archive views (meeting included a debate on the council's plans to develop green space at Packmoor)
• Cabinet meeting on December 10, 2024 – 15 live views – 473 archive views (cabinet members agreed to launch a community engagement exercise on the proposals for Packmoor)
• Cabinet meeting on February 25, 2025 – 39 live views – 414 archive views (cabinet members discussed the creation of a new North Staffordshire unitary authority, the Lemmy statue in Burslem and the council receiving £16.8 million in exceptional financial support)