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A group of councillors have written an open letter to their leaders to ask them to stop all meetings in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
The letter to Ashford Borough Council comes in the wake of the leadership's highly controversial decision to go ahead with a meeting last Wednesday.
The meeting to discuss a highly contentious development in Kennington went ahead despite government advice against non-essential travel.
The Conningbrook Park scheme, which would see 725 homes built on arable land, was originally floated in mid-2018 and was submitted for council approval last January.
Since then, the project being joint-led by Quinn Estates and Redrow Homes has garnered more than 1,000 objection comments and only 74 support comments.
An employee of the prolific developer was sacked after KentOnline revealed fake comments - including one allegedly from a one-month-old - had been left on the so-called Large Burton application.
Regardless, the meeting into the development had to be stopped shortly after starting when its live-stream failed.
"It's time for the council's leadership to stop playing Russian roulette with the lives of staff"
The letter, addressed to Cllrs Gerry Clarkson, Paul Bartlett and Michael Burgess (all Conservative), was undersigned by 30 members of the council.
Headed by Cllrs Nathan Iliffe (Con) and Brendan Chilton (Lab), the letter said: "We regard the decision by the council to continue holding public meetings to be an unnecessary risk and a danger to the welfare of members, staff and the public.
"As a local authority we have a responsibility to set an example to our fellow citizens.
"We are calling on the council to suspend all public meetings of the authority, including planning and that they should be adjourned until the government advises that it is safe to organise public gatherings again.
"We are also calling for the council to scale back the numbers of officers working in the civic centre to the bare minimum in order to support the national effort to reduce the chances of the disease spreading."
Cllr Diccon Spain, Labour member for Bockhanger, was one of the councillors who supported the letter.
He told KentOnline: "We are all on the same page: these meetings must not go ahead in the current circumstances as they clearly put the lives of councillors, council officers and members of the public at risk.
"It's time for the council's leadership to stop playing Russian roulette with the lives of staff, councillors, and residents and cancel any further meetings until it's safe to meet again."
