Express & Star

New Dudley Council leader Qadar Zada takes the helm

Dudley Council has appointed Qadar Zada as its new leader with plans to tackle flytipping, rough sleeping and trouble blighting communities a priority.

Published
Dudley Council's new leader, Councillor Qadar Zada, took the helm after a meeting this week

The councillor took over from Pete Lowe at the helm of the controlling Labour group on the local authority and was confirmed as overall leader on Thursday night.

Following the extraordinary meeting in September that saw Labour oust the Tories and take power.

Councillor Lowe stepped down this month citing 'other political priorities'.

He will takeover Councillor Zada's brief as cabinet member for finance.

He said: "We have set out an agenda on what we're doing to do, we will tackle flytipping using the approach deep clean of the borough, where we can identify every single flytipping zone and target it.

"We will proactively go out and identify the sites, clean them and increase enforcement in the area.

"What I'm bringing is a style of accountability, time-frame and what people can expect from the council, rather than just saying we'll get around to it.

"In terms of policies, we want to do something with anti-social behaviour and working with partners to make the lives of victims easier, and we intend to tackle rough-sleeping in the borough too.

"We have a massive agenda ahead of us, of course we won't do that in our first day of office, but what we will do is systematically and methodically work through it.

Despite setting out his agenda, the 38-year-old would not disclose the future of the potential traveller site in Coseley, that has stalled since Labour took power.

He said: "Wherever the site ends up being, we need to make sure it doesn't generate more problems than it solves and that is why it is the right thing to do to get a quick review done to understand the issues and make sure they are addressed.

"It doesn't mean we have made a decision on where the site will be, we will look at all sites available before making the decision.

"I would rather travellers didn't incur into the borough, that's what I'd prefer, but I do know that in terms of a solution we need a transit site - it needs to be in the best location that will have minimal disruption to the community."

Councillor Zada was first elected to the council in 2011 as ward councillor for Netherton, Woodside and St Andrews.

He has also served as cabinet member for adult social care and chairman of the planning committee.