A request for town council meetings to have a set finish time did not receive enough support from fellow councillors.

Speaking at last Tuesday's Alsager Town Council meeting, councillors discussed whether a 9:30pm finish should be placed on meetings.

Currently councillors vote at 9:30pm whether to suspend standing orders and allow the meeting to continue.

Cllr Michael Unett opened the discussion by stating he wished to remain with the status quo and make no changes to the standing order policy.

Cllr Unett said: "As we have seen with a lot of the urgent business we have had; I do not think this would actually improve anything.

"When we have long meetings there is often a lot of business and the meetings can on and they have to go on.

"Changing this rule means if we were in the middle of an agenda item and had not voted on it, then if we got to 9:30pm in the middle of a debate to the point where we were just about to vote, it would be lost and that agenda item would then have to go to the next meeting.

"At the minute we have such a problem with the meetings because the council is getting busy with projects. Things are coming forward from committees and normally we only have four full town council meetings a year, unless there is an emergency one, which means our meetings are getting longer.

"The problem with this is in fact it will only worsen the problems, if we have to defer items because at 9:30pm we have to close the meeting, it only then fills up the next agenda and kicks everything into the long grass and clogs up the entire system."

Cllr Unett instead proposed that the town council held an additional full council meeting per year.

Cllr Unett added: "But I would not change the time limit, we have to have the ability to suspend standing orders."

Cllr Julia Hawkins, who is a full-time teacher, supported the 9:30pm time limit being introduced because she felt with the current status quo, standing orders were being suspended at "virtually" every meeting.

The Labour councillor said: "That is off putting for people who want to stand for the town council, who have a job, that they need to be up early for in the morning.

"It has certainly been very difficult for me; I am up before 6am every morning to go to work and it does cause problems when they [meetings] go on forever.

"I agree with what Cllr Unett said about the extra projects the town council is having to do, however, it seems to me the way we are dealing with that is by making the meetings longer and longer, which means ordinary people are being put off becoming councillors rather than perhaps having extra meetings so that we can deal with these matters appropriately."

Cllr Jo Dale, who proposed the 9:30pm motion, stated that the town council regularly went into part two of the agenda, where the press and public are excluded, "pretty late on at night".

Cllr Dale stated that councillors were often making "really difficult decisions" when they were all "absolutely shattered" and "mistakes could be made and things could be overlooked".

Cllr Dale continued: "It is not fair for people with children, it is not fair for people who are working first thing in the morning and I think if agendas are too packed it shows we are not having enough meetings.

"I strongly feel that meetings should end at 9:30pm and if there is an emergency item, maybe we could extend 15 minutes beyond that.

"But from 7:15pm to 9:45pm, I think that is long enough for a meeting for people's concentration. We do not want this town council to make silly mistakes through us all being up too late."

Cllr Pauline Hubbard supported Cllr Unett's comments but also understood "some of the difficulties" faced by councillors.

Cllr Hubbard said: "At the end of the day, I do not think that this is the right time when we are in remote meetings to make this sort of change.

"I do think by managing the agenda better apologies to our town clerk, I am not criticising you there, but I think it is in terms of us as councillors, what we choose to talk about and how long we choose to talk about it, I think those things actually need to be addressed and retain the status quo as is."

Cllr Sue Helliwell called for a named vote.

Responding to other councillors concerns and comments, Cllr Unett said: "I understand the concerns all our councillors have and I think it is a sign of the times that we are seeing longer meetings as we are getting the council back up and running after quite a long period of time doing nothing due to Covid-19.

"What we must realise as well is, we have to have that ability to extend standing orders.

"When we have very important meetings, urgent items where we have lots of members of the public to come to speak, they deserve to be heard and see what their councillors are doing.

"We have to do what is best for residents and for the council. I think we should retain virtual meetings as the status quo for now."

Cllr Derek Hough said: "I would retain the status quo exactly as it is now. To say we are tired out after starting at 7:15pm until 9:15pm, I am sorry I was working absolutely unbelievable hours and, on the council, and we coped with it.

"Now it is encumberment on all councillors not only me and I know I am one of the worst, say your peace then shut up.

"I will be voting against the proposal; I think we should continue as we are."

The proposal that Alsager Town Council meetings finished at 9:30pm was defeated by six votes to five.

The current status quo of suspending standing orders at 9:30pm was retained.