Council meetings might not always provide much drama or entertainment. In fact, many find them a bit of a turn-off.

But Kent County Council is considering trying to get people more interested by allowing people to tweet their views live to councillors as they chew over weighty issues such as the state of our roads or school standards.

It is exploring ways of allowing taxpayers to use Twitter and other social media to make their own suggestions as councillors ponder policy plans.

With some 200 million users and 350 million tweets a day, KCC hopes using Twitter and other social media could help address a long-standing problem most councils face - persuading more members of the public to take an interest in local democracy as it happens, rather than after something has been decided.

Opposition Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Trudy Dean, who has led the call to open up County Hall via social media, said people's views and suggestions could be read out during a meeting and streamed as part of live webcasts of county council meetings that already take place.

She said: "We do not get huge numbers watching the webcasts but if they had this opportunity, they may take more interest. The people who can ask the most interesting questions are the ones who use our services and there ought to be a way in which we can allow it to happen."

KCC has a handful of elected members who use Twitter, but they are in a minority.

Only one member of the Conservative cabinet is a regular user - the cabinet member for education, Conservative councillor Mike Whiting.