PEOPLE could soon be able to listen to parish and town council meetings from the comfort of their own homes.

Essex County Council has appointed a company to provide online webcasting services, and has negotiated a deal for all parish and town councils to get the service free for a year.

The new service, which has been developed by Essex-based company Audiominutes, allows audio to be recorded through a mobile phone.

David Finch, leader of Essex County Council, said: “As a council we want to ensure our public meetings are as accessible as possible, and over the coming year there will be hundreds of hours of audio being made available.

“The issue with this technology has always been the cost, with the necessity of having to employ someone to monitor and run the system during meetings and having to archive large amounts of data.

“This new system requires no additional staff time, is good value for money and will provide further transparency to the democratic process.”