The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Council’s budget approved – just!
Mayor’s casting vote sees approval of authority’s financial plans after dramatic vote ended in a tie The casting vote of Peterborough’s Mayor passed a tough new city council budget at a dramatic meeting and prevented the authority’s Conservative group fro
Members of Peterborough City Council approved a balanced budget at the meeting of the full council last week.
However, the vote could not have been closer and, after two hours of debate, when a count was taken, the votes stood at 28 in favour of passing the budget, 28 against, and one abstention.
With the future of the entire council quite literally at stake, it came down to mayor, Cllr Steven Lane, to cast the deciding vote – as was constitutionally correct for him to do so – and he voted in favour of passing the budget.
After the meeting, leader of the council, Cllr Wayne Fitzgerald said: “Had the vote gone against us tonight, I would have had no other option than to call the Conservative members into another room and tell them that we were going to resign the administration.”
It was vital that the council approve a balanced budget as the alternative would have been to relinquish all financial power to central government, effectively cancelling every project current in the planning stage.
The atmosphere in the chamber at Sand Martin House was charged from the very beginning as cabinet member for finance, Cllr Any Coles, who, along with many council officers have worked to find savings through cuts in public services in order to balance the budget, asked for support from all political groups.
Immediately the debating began it was obvious that was never a likely outcome.
Leader of the Green Party, Cllr Julie Howells, said: “We’ve made every effort to support the administration in its aims to present a balanced budget.
“So, it is with a heavy heart that our group will not be supporting this budget. Although we feel that we have upheld our side of the agreement, we’ve been bitterly disappointed by the short-notice postponement of the most recent meeting and the late receipt of critical documents prior to meetings.
“Documents which we are supposed to scrutinise thoroughly in advance of each meeting so that we can ask the questions that need to be asked.”
Cllr Ed Murphy added: “How can I vote for a budget when we don’t even understand or can demonstrate to councillors what our budget is for leisure services?
“We don’t seem to know what we’re spending and why; the budget doesn’t add up because the logic of the next stages are not behind it – they’ve certainly not been demonstrated to members.”
However, Cllr Fitzgerald was unmoved, responding: “I’ve listened to the comments that have been made tonight but I just won’t enter into a dialogue with those councillors who appear to have misunderstood my criticisms, particularly of Cllr Sandford (leader of the Lib Dem Group), for his failure to accept responsibility for setting the budget.
“Its not that they haven’t contributed because I know Cllr Sandford has, but what I find frustrating has been the unwillingness to accept that it is 60-members’ responsibility of this council to set a workable budget, not just the 28 of us in the Conservative administration.”