A South Hams town council has tried to prevent a video clip of a meeting being shown online.

Camerman John Walker filmed this week’s Dartmouth Town Council debate about its decision to prevent a charitable group from setting up a stall within its Old Market complex.

Dartmouth Community Chest, which supports families suffering financial hardship with fuel grants and pre-owned furniture and household equipment, had been setting up a stall within the market for several months but, when volunteers arrived last Friday, they were told they could only set up outside the market, on the car park. The group refused the invitation and left.

Supporters of the group turned up at Monday night’s full council meeting and asked why they weren’t allowed to set up within the market.

Later in the meeting, Cllr Steve Smith raised the issue again.

Mr Walker, who was filming the entire meeting, edited the two parts together in a 10-minute clip and uploaded the clip to YouTube.

The council then emailed Mr Walker, saying: “Please can you remove the video… which is edited from the full recording. Please can you refrain from panning and zooming in on individuals in the

future.”

The Chronicle, which has been given access to Mr Walker’s videos for our own use, sought legal advice.

The legal adviser pointed to advice given by the then Local Government Secretary, Eric Pickles, who in 2014 signed a parliamentary order allowing press and public to film and digitally report from all public meetings of local government bodies.

A Government report at the time said: “Following the passage of both primary and secondary legislation, the move opens councils’ digital doors, covering broadcasters, national press, local press, bloggers and hyper-local journalists and the wider public. The new law aims to end active resistance amongst some councils to greater openness.”

It was the view of our legal adviser that the town council neither had the authority to prevent the meeting being videoed nor the power to order a clip from the video posted online to be removed.

The Chronicle has asked the town council for a comment but it has not yet responded.