Following claims that Alsager Town Council meetings had sometimes become "quite toxic" for a "good number of years", councillors agreed to adopt an anti-bullying charter.

After Cheshire East Council recently agreed to adopt an anti-bullying charter, Cllr Michael Unett proposed that Alsager Town Council adopted the same charter and agreed to adhere to the same principles.

The charter was launched by Cheshire Anti-Bullying Commission before Christmas in response to its report which investigated bullying among under-25s across the county.

More than 100 organisations across Cheshire have already pledged their support to challenging bullying by signing the charter.

Cheshire Anti-Bullying Commission was established by police and crime commissioner (PCC) David Keane in response to concerns about the impact of bullying in schools and workplaces.

Adopting the charter was discussed at last Tuesday's Alsager Town Council meeting.

Cllr Unett said: "I think it is beneficial for all organisations including ours to sign up and really lead by example.

"This affects many different workplaces and many different areas within our communities.

"Leading by example, signing this charter and most importantly adhering to its principles is something that we can do as a council and hopefully it encourages others to do so as well."

Cllr Sue Helliwell queried whether signing up to the charter meant it would then be illegal for councillors to share private messages or communications from a private Facebook page or email.

Town clerk, Nicola Clarke, told councillors that the charter would only be "advisory" and if there were any issues with councillors, it would still be referred to the members code of conduct.

Cllr Helliwell "welcomed" the adoption of the charter because she felt that town council meetings can sometimes become "quite toxic" and had been for a "good number of years".

She added: "I do think we need to be mindful and move forward and make 2021 a nice place for all councillors to come to meetings and participate and not be spoken over and be belittled."

Cllr Derek Hough's only concern upon signing the charter was the "protection of the victim".

Cllr Hough added: "If you are a victim and it becomes known to the aggressor that you have complained, I think you are leaving yourself open particularly on Facebook to further comments.

"I would like to see protection of the innocent victim in the campaign because otherwise it is going to be very difficult for the victim to indicate, so I would like the protection of the victim added to this.

"As has been pointed out, this has been going on for many years and people will ask me, why are you not on Facebook?

"Because I do not want subjecting to the ridicule that I had when I was on Facebook."

Cllr Rod Fletcher highlighted that cyber-bullying which "is on the increase" was included in the charter.

Cllr Julian Goodrich, who is a workplace representative, emphasised that bullying "unfortunately takes place in many forms virtually every day".

The Conservative councillor pointed out that the charter would not become legislation and understood Cllr Hough's comments about the victim, but he felt the victim would follow the normal monitoring officer and in more serious cases, police channels.

Cllr Goodrich added: "I do think this is a good step forward and highlighting what bullying is and how it can affect people and how it can be not obvious to a lot of people and the different forms it can take.

"I think everyone's aware of physical bullying, but I think emotional bullying is something that people are not aware of, unless they have been unfortunate enough to suffer with it.

"Therefore, any document or any charter that brings that out is welcomed."

Councillors agreed to adopt the anti-bullying charter.