Sheffield councillor kicked out of first virtual meeting after row about officers 'disregarding' objections

The meeting was to decide if a new bar should be allowed to operate on Nether Edge Road.

Coun Douglas Johnson, who sits on the committee, was forced to exit the video call when he raised concerns about missing comments from the public.

Coun Johnson said he was made aware of extra objections through local residents and questioned why there was no reference to them in the officers’ report which the committee read before making a decision.

He said: “It’s completely inappropriate for officers to do filtering, especially when the objection clearly relates to licensing, so I'm going to ask that the committee is deferred until all the relevant papers are together.

"I think it's important that all the facts are on the table."

However, Marie-Claire Frankie, legal adviser to the council, said it was a requirement of officers to “only put that which is relevant” into reports and said filtering objections was acceptable.