A COUNCILLOR had a near miss after a speaker fell just inches from her head during a council meeting.

As Eastleigh Borough Council leader Keith House began his leader's speech at a packed full council a large loudspeaker raised on a pole was pulled over crashing to the floor.

It narrowly missed Cllr Maureen Sollitt who was sat with her back to the device.

The incident, which happened in a meeting room at the Ageas Bowl, came after a wire from the loudspeaker which ran across the ceiling where it was plugged into a device in the centre of the ceiling came loose.

One councillor jokingly asked "You still alive Maureen?", to which she said "I'm fine".

The council now moves around to different buildings in the borough for each full council meeting as it has no council chamber to accommodate all 44 councillors at its new town centre civic headquarters Eastleigh House which it moved into in March last year.

Cllr Judith Grajewski said the loudspeaker was heavy and the councillor could have been seriously hurt.

She called on the council to "stop this circus of travelling around everywhere and having to adapt to different buildings and venues", adding she had had great difficulty even finding the meeting room as there had only been one sign.

"We have been doing this for 18 months. I think meetings need to be accessible," she said.