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Full marks to Cornwall councillor Lisa Dolley, the Independent member for Redruth North, who has forked out £15 of her own money to visit a lap dancing club.

Lisa is vice chair of the council's Miscellaneous Licensing Committee and as such has to sit in judgement on whether, where and when such premises can open in Cornwall. As previously reported on this blog, and then more widely by national newspapers, this committee feels it necessary to make an official visit to an out-of-county lap dancing club in order to find out what goes on.

There were always going to be problems with this visit - not just from a PR point of view - such as how it could be an effective fact-finding tour if the club knew in advance it was being visited by a licensing committee, or whether local councillors should be sufficiently worldly-wise to know about lap dancing without gaining their education at taxpayers' expense.

Lisa took the trouble to find out for herself. If other councillors had done the same, this issue would probably have never made the headlines.