Bill Randall, the new leader of the council, has spoken of “the enormity of the task ahead” in Brighton and Hove.
Councillor Randall, convenor of the Green group on Brighton and Hove City Council, appeared on the Politics Show on BBC1 today.
The interview marked the historic local election result which led to the Greens forming their first council administration in Britain a year after voters in Brighton Pavilion elected the first Green MP.
The party promised to fight the £54 million cuts required by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government.
Councillor Randall said that he would seek an early meeting with Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, who is the cabinet minister responsible for local government.
He said that the council’s previous Tory administration had accepted the case for cuts without challenging it because they were in the same party.
The new opposition leader, Councillor Geoffrey Theobald, said: “They are a party that has never had to run anything.
Easy option
“It was an easy option for them to say on the doorstep we will resist all cuts.”
The Conservative group leader said that the reality of trying to implement their manifesto would proved harder for the Greens.
Labour group leader, Councillor Gill Mitchell, said: “We will hold them to the promises they made to the electorate just a few weeks ago.”
The Greens’ election manifesto can be read by clicking here.
One of the first challenges for the new administration will be to submit the council’s Local Transport Plan to the Department for Transport or risk losing government grants.
The plan is expected to be approved at a meeting on Thursday (26 May) even though it was drawn up under the previous Conservative administration.
One Green councillor said that it was important to submit the plan and try to amend it in the coming weeks and months to reflect the newly elected party’s priorities.
Transport was one of the issues that has most clearly divided the Greens and the Conservatives.
The most recent high-profile example was over the issue of the cycle lane in The Drive and The Upper Drive in Hove, which the Conservatives wanted to scrap.
Green council comes under TV spotlight, and so they should as the leader of the Green council is stepping down that’s just 6 months in-leadership, what is to come of the green run council and all the so called pledges they made to the people of B&H, if they continue with there ruff back hand tactics towards the tenants & residents there hopes of another term will end.
incredible to think Randall has quit and run after just six months, so much for an enormous task and fighting cuts, the city is fighting Green cuts a year on
Yesterday at Housing Management Consultative Committee (HMCC) Item 91 on the Agenda was the review of the Housing Allocations Policy which recommended that Care-leavers should be classed as priority Band A, and be treated as `special’.
Why? Though Care-leavers may have heart-rending stories they are not more so than the stories of others classified in Band A as having priority need of Housing and Care-leavers should not be allowed to queue-jump but be treated on an equal footing with all who fall into band A.
The history of this Policy has been a strange one, the Allocations policy officers bypassed and forbidden to discuss the subject with Tenants’ Representatives. A meeting with Representatives at which Strategic Director, Tony Parkin, lied through his teeth to those present. Officer-written documents edited by yet another Strategic Director, Geoff Raw, and a wholly unconvincing document presented before the mandatory Consultation period had expired. HMCC sent it away.
An attempt to bypass re-presenting the document to HMCC was thwarted by the vigilance of Councillor Gary Peltzer-Dunn and his colleagues at the Adult Social Care & Housing Overview Scrutiny Committee and the paper forced back to HMCC for discussion and consideration.
The discussion (and the gagging of discussion) high-lighted the Administration’s complete disregard for the views of the residents of Brighton, Hove and Portslade when the Chair (Councillor Bill Randall; substituting for the Cabinet Member for Housing, curiously absent) instructed Councillors to ignore the views of the Tenants’ Representatives who had voted unanimously to reject the Policy.
This is not so much Green with its protestations of commitment to consultation and resident involvement in decision-making, more like Gangrene!
The question in my mind is why the indecent haste to railroad this policy through? Is it that a pending Application for a Judicial Review would show up the long-running systemic failure of CYPT and Social Services to provide a proper service to Care-leavers? Or is it simply a question of off-loading the funding burden onto the Housing Revenue Account and what knock-on effect will that have on current service provision levels?
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