Dudley Lib Dems defend ‘farce’ in council chamber

The Tory group does not have a majority in the council chamber, so at the budget meeting of full council on February 23, for the second year in succession, they relied on Lib Dem votes for it to pass.

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The Lib Dem’s price for their support was an amendment which demanded priority was given to specific issues including resurfacing a road and other infrastructure projects in wards with councillors from their party.

The conditions attracted ridicule from other councillors who insisted the budget should be about borough-wide spending, not individual issues.

Cllr Pete Lowe, from The Black Country Party, said: “We are quickly descending down into that avenue of farce, its b***** ridiculous.

“This will set the precedent, it makes a farce of democracy, let’s get rid of the individual casework that councillors have been unable to complete.

“Rest assured next year there will be 57 amendments, a lot of varieties, which will come forward to this budget setting meeting talking from potholes to chip shops, whatever the electorate demands.”

Speaking after the meeting, Dudley’s Lib Dem Leader, Cllr Ryan Priest denied his group was using the Conservative’s need for support for electioneering.

Cllr Priest said: “I am clear Liberal Democrats are elected on their individual mandate and that is to fight for their individual wards.

“When we were talking about what we wanted to get out of this budget we said it is a budget that steadies the ship, what we want is the priorities in our wards to be addressed.

“Cradley and Wollescote has missed out on investment for 20 years, as far as I am concerned I don’t regret it whatsoever.

“If we have to hold the Conservative administration to ransom to get things that should be done in Cradley and Woollescote, I make no apologies.

“Any member can do that, I think that is doing the job of councillors.”

Labour’s Cllr Adam Aston, leader of the largest opposition group on the council, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We’ve seen a Tory/Lib Dem coalition, we saw exactly the same last year.

“What’s made it worse is the Lib Dem amendment is focused narrowly on two or three wards where we should be focused on the borough as a whole, it’s political opportunism.

“That’s not how a metropolitan borough council works; we could all put in a few roads that need resurfacing and we would be here until Christmas.

“We need a strategic budget for the council, not picking and choosing certain wards to get votes, this isn’t how we should do politics in Dudley.”

Dudley Council’s leader, Cllr Patrick Harley, says he wants an outright majority in the chamber after local elections in May but in the meantime he will do whatever he can to deliver a balanced budget.

After the meeting, Cllr Harley said: “We got the budget through which is what matters.

“There is a commitment there to review some of those projects, some may get delivered, some may not.

“We have to take a case by case basis to the Capital Allocations Board, there has to be a business case for doing each of those projects.”