Councillors may be stopped from having placards, signs or banners that make a political statement at future Powys council meetings.

At a meeting of Powys County Councils Standards committee on Wednesday, June 18, councillors and lay members received a report from colleague Jonathan Goolden who had observed the council meeting that took place on March 6.

At this meeting, councillors formally set the council tax that had been agreed as part of budget proposals voted on in February.

Opposition councillors had also hoped that a motion calling for a pause in the roll out of a controversial booking system for Powys recycling centres would be voted on.

But their hopes were dashed as they were told that they had not submitted the motion in time to be included on the agenda.

Committee lay member Mr Goolden reported to the committee that the meeting had been “good humoured, well chaired.”

Mr Goolden said: “One member displayed what I thought was a local paper headline saying – what a load of rubbish.

“At the time I thought this was a reference to a Powys issue, but it was a Shropshire issue.”

This headline came from a newsletter published by Liberal Democrats that highlighted that they had successfully campaigned against a booking system for recycling centres in Shropshire.

The newsletter was placed in front of Conservative group leader, Cllr Aled Davies and highlighted the differing stances on recycling centres taken by Liberal Democrat politicians in Powys and Shropshire.

Mr Goolden said: “There is a balance between the right of members to express themselves freely on political matters and for a council meeting to be conducted with due efficiency and decorum – I just wish to draw that to members’ attention in case it becomes an issue.”

Head of legal services and monitoring officer Clive Pinney said: “This is something we could ask the Democratic Services committee to consider – if members think it’s inappropriate we could write it into the constitution and prevent it happening in the future.”

Cllr Iain Harrison (Conservative) said that this incident had been “trivial” but with the state of the world at the moment this could lead down a “slippery slope”.

Cllr Harrison said: “We could see all sorts of imaging popping up that could create great offence to quite sizeable sections of the population.

“The simplest behaviour to adopt is that is that it’s not allowed at all under any circumstances and we need to be very clear on that.”

Cllr William Powell (Liberal Democrat) was elected as the council chairman in May and welcomed the advice to refer the issue to Democratic Services.

Cllr Powell said: “I think for a chair to be freelancing on the issue is probably dangerous in its own way and it would be better if it’s backed up by due process.

“It would be a more solid basis on which to proceed.”

The committee agreed to this.