A TOWN council has come under fire for proposing to reintroduce prayers to meetings after a national organisation questioned whether the move would 'undermine religious freedom'.

Members of Lyme Regis Town Council's strategy and policy committee voted in favour of reintroducing prayers onto the agenda of full council meetings. But the National Secular Society has said the policy 'would be incompatible with a genuine commitment to religious freedom'.

In a letter to councillors, Stephen Evans, campaigns manager for the National Secular Society, said: "I’m sure you’ll agree that it is important to make local democracy as open and inclusive as possible. The presence of predominantly Christian prayers may be seen as alienating for some who are not Christian.

"Lyme Regis Town Council is of course a secular body and we therefore invite you to question whether it would be appropriate for the council to identify with a particular religious position. We hope you will agree that serving all local residents equally means being scrupulously impartial with respect to matters of religion or belief.

"Despite having a new legal power to include prayers, we ask you to ensure that your meetings are conducted in a manner equally welcoming to all attendees, regardless of their individual religious beliefs or lack of belief. Expecting non-Christian councillors to leave the room or stay silent once the meeting has begun doesn’t achieve this.

"The absence of prayers from the formal business of meetings in no way impedes the religious freedoms of believers or deny anybody the right to pray. Councillors who wish to seek guidance in prayer collectively are at liberty to meet before meetings and pray without imposing their religious beliefs on to the formal business of the meeting and on to people who don’t share their personal predilections.

"A vote to allow acts of worship to be imposed on the business on the town council’s meetings would be incompatible with a genuine commitment to religious freedom."

A High Court decision in 2012 found that the saying of prayers as part of a formal council meeting was not lawful, and prayers are said before Lyme Regis Town Council before the meetings are formally opened.

Last November, the town council was given permission, under the Localism Act, to obtain the freedom to have prayers as part of formal meetings.

Lyme Regis Mayor, Cllr Owen Lovell, said: “Subject to the approval of the full council, Lyme Regis Town Council as a democratic body has decided that prayers will be re-introduced at the start of council meetings.

“A councillor who is a non-Christian has agreed he is happy for that to take place, as has previously been the tradition in Lyme Regis.”