Parties clash over Telford & Wrekin Council funding on day of Rachel Reeves visit

With council leader Lee Carter absent from Thursday’s (September 25) cabinet meeting as he met Labour’s chancellor Rachel Reeves on the day of a major funding announcement, all sides agreed with the generally positive results of the residents’ survey.

It left members of the cabinet praising the work of Telford & Wrekin Council, while the Tory leader was worried about return visits to fix potholes and the Lib Dem leader thought Labour councillors risked painting “too positive a picture”.

Councillor Ollie Vickers (Labour, Donnington) the cabinet member for the economy and transport, launched into the council’s Conservative group.

“They talk this council down, they talk our town down and they talk our people down and we will not stand for it,” he said.

“For months and months we have heard what the Conservative group are against but we’re still waiting to hear what they are in favour of.”

Addressing Conservative group leader Andrew Eade – who re-took the party leadership in the spring – Councillor Vickers said: “Opposition without ideas is just noise.”

Councillor Eade (Church Aston & Lilleshall) said: “I feel rather picked on.

“Certainly Bill Tomlinson [the Lib Dem leader] doesn’t get that sort of savage attack… it’s like being attacked by a toothless budgie really.”

Saying that the council must monitor the number of times the same potholes have to be fixed, he doubted that an earmarked £42 million would be available to the council to make repairs.

“I don’t think it is going to happen because of the economic mess that’s facing the country at the moment,” he said.

“This Labour Government are in a dire strait, you’re looking at a £30bn black hole.

“It is a mess that has been triggered by the chancellor, the cabinet and the Government seems to have lost authority all together.

“Everybody in the country is going to pay for it.”

He claimed that a “financial tsunami” is coming.

“It’s your Government, it’s your council, it’s your mess, you are going to have to sort out the budget this time,” he said, after being accused of not presenting an alternative council financial plan.

Councillor Tomlinson (Shawbirch & Dothill) said: “Well that was cheerful, wasn’t it?”

He said he thinks Telford & Wrekin Council is an “excellent authority” which is looking to improve, but added that the leadership is trying to paint too positive a picture.

But he accused local Tories of “hypocrisy” and national Conservatives of robbing the council of funding during their 14 years in power.

Councillor Tomlinson said: “We have lived with a financial tsunami from the previous Tory government.

“They robbed us of so many funds that we had to make do and mend.

“It’s hypocrisy to say ‘look what’s coming from the Labour Government’. They are trying to fix the huge pothole that was left in our finances from the previous Government.”

Deputy leader Councillor Richard Overton (Labour, St Georges) had the last word, saying Labour is “talking this town up” while the opposition is talking it down.

He said the previous Conservative Government left a £20bn black hole, and that “Labour is trying to break the mess after the Tories broke the country for 14 years”.