October 6th, 2024Councillor walk-out prevents planning decision

Three local councillors walked out of the regular Hepburn Council meeting on September 16, effectively preventing a decision being made on a confidential planning matter, just prior to the council entering caretaker mode.

The meeting, the last for the current council prior to this month’s council elections, was closed to the public at 9:10 pm for councillors to consider the planning matter.

However, minutes of the meeting show that the meeting was abandoned at 9:21 pm due to a failure to make a quorum as required for the vote to proceed.

With the current six councillors – following the July resignation of Councillor Juliet Simpson due to personal reasons – the required quorum was four councillors, indicating that at least three councillors left the meeting.

Hepburn Shire CEO Bradley Thomas has subsequently publicly confirmed that the abandonment will not cause any planning delays or trigger an application to VCAT.