HEAVY handed security at council meetings is excluding the public from local democracy, campaigners have claimed.

New measures brought in for Brighton and Hove City Council meetings including ticketing, increased use of security guards and bag checks have been criticised.

The measures have been introduced after a sharp rise in complaints about intimidation from protesters.

Cllr Les Hamilton intimated the murder of MP Jo Cox in June was also a factor in the review of security arrangements ahead of the return of public meetings in renovated Hove Town Hall.

The council now carries out a risk assessment 24 hours before each meeting with the number of security guards deployed dependent on factors including contentious items on the agenda, likely protests and police intelligence.

Only residents schedule to speak at meetings or with accessibility issues now are allowed into the council chamber while at very well-attended meetings, security have been instructed to refuse access if capacity is reached with residents asked to watch the meeting via a webcast.

At this month’s full council meeting, teenage protesters were prevented from entering the council chamber to watch 17-year-old Boudicca Pepper quiz council leader Warren Morgan over proposed youth services' cuts.

Protests by Sussex Defend the NHS group and Sisters Against Austerity and over Coperforma, Uber and Hove library this year are said to be behind the increased security

By comparison just one meeting in 2015, February's budget meeting, and none in 2014 were considered intimidatory.

Seasoned council observer and former council candidate Nigel Furness described the council’s linking of the security changes to the death of Jo Cox as “in very poor taste”.

He added: “Throughout history you have had public involvement in politics, that’s democracy, and now they are keeping the hoi polloi out.

“In the interests of security and democracy it would be much more sensible to open up all the meetings, if you exclude the public from the democratic process you will get a different sort of politics.”

Housing campaigner Daniel Harris has also complained to the council about the level of security.

He said: “I normally sit downstairs but was told at a recent meeting to sit upstairs by security.

“I suffer from low blood sugar levels but they took my bottle of Lucozade off me and when I went downstairs to get water on three occasions a security guard followed me back from the toilet.

“There were seven people in the public gallery and four security guards.”

Deputy Labour group leader Les Hamilton told a recent council meeting there had been no decision to exclude people from partaking in the democratic process.

He added that most meetings will still allow for members of the public to come along but a decision might be made when there is a large demonstration.