New council leader faces a challenge to deliver on changes
DOES MIKE ROSS HAVE A PLAN?
HE’S the new Liberal Democrat leader of Hull, but who is Mike Ross and is he a man with a plan?
As he prepares to succeed Labour’s Daren Hale at the helm of Hull City Council, it’s fair to say the first question is probably easier to answer. For, while his party has regained control at the Guildhall for the first time in just over a decade, the details of what it actually intends to do with that political power remain somewhat vague.
Away from politics, Cllr Ross is married with two young children, a keen cyclist and a regular churchgoer. He first came to Hull in 2000 to study politics at the city’s university, having previously worked as a constituency office manager for Norman Baker, then the Lib Dem MP for Lewes in East Sussex.
In terms of frontline political experience, Cllr Ross is now a relative veteran compared with most members of his group, having first been elected to the city council exactly 20 years ago on a night when the Lib Dems made history by ousting Labour for the first time in Hull.
In a baptism of fire, he was immediately handed a cabinet role in what was always an uneasy and often chaotic alliance with a handful of independents destined to implode 12 months later at the next election.
He returned as a cabinet member for education in 2006 when the Lib Dems regained control, initially without being able to command an overall majority. He was also deputy to Lib Dem leader Carl Minns for a while before being replaced in that role by Abi Bell in an internal reshuffle.
His time as a cabinet portfolio was perhaps best known for overseeing the multi-million-pound Building Schools for the Future programme. It was an initiative funded by Tony Blair’s Labour government and which had originally been kickstarted locally by Labour.
The deal saw every secondary school in the city being replaced by a brand new one or substantially refurbished on condition they all move out of council control to become academies. He also was responsible for leading on the recovery of several schools across Hull which suffered damage during the devastating floods of 2007.
After the Lib Dem defeat in 2011 and Carl Minns’s own exit from the council after losing his seat, he became Abi Bell’s deputy on the opposition benches before taking over from her in 2015 when she decided to step down after having a baby. Since then, he has gradually steered the Lib Dems back into power through a series of small gains in successive elections.
Now the challenge to deliver without having unveiled any headline-grabbing policy pledges to match.
The only real clues as to what might lie ahead can be found in the Lib Dems’ alternative spending plans tabled during February’s annual council budget-setting meeting. They included proposals to scrap the council’s Love Hull magazine delivered free to all households, cut allowances for councillors and carry out a review of senior management posts while mapping out limited suggested savings around travel costs, providing more efficient training and reducing overtime.
Similarly, relatively modest new investment was proposed including extra support for a revived wardbased crime prevention fund totalling £250,000 and last operated under the previous Lib Dem regime, a £583,000 budget for green-based community clean-up ideas, additional money for support services dealing with drug and domestic abuse as well as mental health and £70,000 towards supporting community volunteers.
Perhaps the two most eye-catching plans were to set aside nearly £1m to effectively subsidise a 2 per cent increase in council tax compared to Labour’s eventual 2.9 per cent hike and the removal of a £442,000 budget allocation towards ongoing feasibility work around the cruise terminal project together with a promised review of the council’s capital programme.
Now, elevated to council leader, he’s facing the biggest challenge of his political career with a public verdict on what he does already in the diary for May next year when the next elections take place.
Elevated to council leader, Mike Ross is facing the biggest challenge of his political career