TYWYN town councillors were due to meet last night to discuss whether to have a secret ballot before co-opting a new member.

The council has been left with a vacant seat after Frank Bridle moved to Aberystwyth and resigned.

After there was insufficient interest in having an election three candidates, Hilary Rowlands, Matthew Cooling, and David Rees Edwards put their names forward to replace him.

Under the town council’s current rules, each candidate would have to be interviewed and then councillors would vote for their favoured candidate with a show of hands, as happened with Cllr Harriet Webb’s co-option last year.

Vice chair Nancy Clarke felt strongly that the electorate are “entitled to know how their councillors vote”.

However, Cllr Marisa O’Hara and Cllr Ron McCoo disliked the idea of publicly disclosing their vote and called for a secret ballot, so that candidates and the public would not know who they voted for.

Councillors decided to hold an extraordinary meeting last night, Wednesday, to consider varying the council’s standing orders to allow for a secret ballot before holding another meeting to co-opt the new member.

Read the full story in today’s Meirionnydd edition of the Cambrian News