Lib Dems take over Bristol City Council
The Liberal Democrats have taken control of Bristol City Council after Labour sensationally quit at a crucial budget meeting.
The issue that brought the ruling party down on Tuesday night was the possibility of an incinerator being built to burn household waste.
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The Lib Dems now have control of Bristol City Council
The Post predicted last year that this could destroy the Labour cabinet and – if the Lib Dems did not accept the challenge to take power – lead to meltdown on the council.
But last night Liberal Democrat leader Barbara Janke did accept the reins.
She was voted back into office for a third time following a tense, six-and-a- half-hour meeting.
Former Lord Mayor Peter Abraham said afterwards: "I've been on the council for 40 years and I've never seen anything like it. It's quite dramatic."
The change of leader – Labour's Helen Holland and the rest of her cabinet stood down – means a range of critical issues on which her party was expected to make decisions are now left up in the air.
The city's council tax rate – which was expected to go up by 3.5 per cent in April – is also affected. An amended budget, opposed by Labour, means the rate will now only go up 3.2 per cent, saving a typical family about £4.
The bill for city council services for the average Band D household was set to rise from £1,272 a year to more than £1,316 if plans had been agreed last night. Now the Band D rate is fixed at £1,312.70 for the coming year – or £1,532.59 including precepts to cover the cost of the police and fire services.
The city council will still spend £365 million next year as planned. But relatively small amounts of savings and corresponding spending items put forward in a number of Lib Dem amendments are now included. With 25 councillors – 24 since a byelection last year – Labour had run the city since May 2007.
But the hung council's minority administration had tied its colours to the mast on long-term plans for household waste treatment.
Ms Holland and her finance chief, Councillor John Bees, made it clear during the budget debate that they would not continue if voted down on this issue.
It was the small Tory group, led by Councillor Richard Eddy, that delivered a fatal blow when they sided with the Lib Dems.
Mrs Janke's party's amendment means that Labour's proposal to spend £389,000 next year on furthering waste treatment plans already agreed with neighbouring councils in North Somerset and South Gloucestershire – both Tory-run – have been suspended.
Bristol and two of the other three West of England Partnership councils – not including Bath and North East Somerset – are applying for up to £90m of Government funding in the form of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) credits.
This has been intended to foot about half the bill for long-term waste treatment. No technology for this has been agreed but opponents have always feared an incinerator would eventually be chosen, with Avonmouth the likely location if it went ahead.
Conservative councillor for Avonmouth Spud Murphy said he was voting with the Lib Dems to oppose the plans because local people did not want an incinerator.
Mr Eddy said his whole group would back the Lib Dem amendment because they believed Labour was "wedded" to an incinerator.
But officers warned of swingeing penalties if the city council was obliged to breach its contract with its neighbouring councils. A letter from Amanda Deeks, chief executive of South Gloucestershire Council, was circulated. This said that the cost to the three partner councils if no scheme was agreed would be £357m over 30 years, or £12m a year.
It also said the cost of adopting a non-PFI scheme for financing waste treatment long-term would cost £142m, or £6m a year.
Carew Reynell, the council's chief finance officer, told the meeting there were four risks involved in the Lib Dems' proposal.
These included liabilities to the other councils, the loss of the PFI option for funding any form of waste disposal, the council's reputation as a partner with other authorities and severe penalties for using landfill if no alternative was found.
Mr Bees said: "This is extremely bad for Bristol and will have long-term consequences."
But former Lib Dem leader Councillor Steve Comer accused Labour of "bluff and bluster" and denied that PFI was "the only show in town".
He said there would be "a far greater risk to the environment and the people of Bristol" if the council and its partners pressed ahead with the PFI bid, including an incinerator as its "reference project".
In resigning Ms Holland said: "We believe that more than the waste strategy is at stake here.
"We are proud of the work we have done to transform the city council in the last 20 months, building better relationships with partners and giving confidence in Bristol to Government and other funders."
She said the council was an improving authority.
Mrs Janke said afterwards: "I didn't expect this, but it is an enormous privilege to serve the city as leader." She said she would be forming a new administration "over the next day or so".
The party would be holding a group meeting, she said, adding that there was a large number of issues that needed to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.
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by Mark Stuart, Fishponds
Thursday, February 26 2009, 3:10PM
“Yes Dan- I was aware of the plant on the IoW. To the best of my knowledge, it is part of a trial run by DEFRA to test what the potential might be for these plants to deal with different types and volumes of waste. These results won¿t be known for some time; hence my comment that it was untested. It is also an expensive procedure. All these waste disposal processes leave some kind of end residue which then has to be dealt with ¿ and that adds to the expense. I believe I ¿m right in saying that the gasification-pyrolysis method leaves a residue that, at best, can be used in something like road building and, at worst, would have to go straight to landfill. If there is no guaranteed end user for the residue (and that would depend on price and quality) it will inevitably end up in landfill. That adds to the council tax and, because it also increases the national total going to landfill, that would mean increased fines on the government from the EC.
It¿s a difficult area because there are so many angles to consider. Much better minds than mine are wrestling with this, so I don¿t know whether you¿d consider this explanation to be a ¿reasonable case¿. Moreover, one process alone is unlikely to be the answer. However, incineration is a vastly improved and well tried process with established end users. For this reason it is an economical choice.
In answer to Sally, I think you must be confusing me with someone else. I made no mention of building anything in the centre of a city.”
by Sally, BRISTOL
Wednesday, February 25 2009, 10:50PM
“So then Mark Stuart of Fishponds are you saying that the answer to waste treatment in to put a recycling plant in the centre of one of Britains largest and greatest cities? The idiot decision by some looser who proposed having this in Fishponds for example.
We are surrounded by countryside and Labout wanted to put this in people's gardens effecting 1000s of homes.
Please keep silly opinions to yourself.”
by MikeMSN, Midsomer Norton
Wednesday, February 25 2009, 10:27PM
“Thank you Mark Stuart of Fishponds. How great it would be if EP comments were normally of this quality.”
by Dan, Bishopston
Wednesday, February 25 2009, 8:48PM
“Fantastic news.
I agree with Natalie and others that there was more than a whiff of sleaze about the Labour administration's dealings with developers.
I saw an email last night sent to Helen Holland and the national press and national Labour politicians outlining a complaint about the underhand way the Cricket Club have been going about their expansion plans and the way the Administration had supported them.
Please Lib Dems - give us (back) the Brunel school which Labour took away - a decision which you valiantly fought against.
Now moving onto the waste incineration Mark Stuart, states
......start quote......
Now, with the city seemingly on the verge of receiving a multi million pound government grant to help to push its waste development strategy into the 21st century the Lib Dems pull the plug, thanks to their obsession with one piece of untested technology.
......end quote......
Just how closely have you been following the story? Are you aware that Energos (another company using Gasification-pyrolysis) have six commercially proven plants built & operating in Germany & Norway. They opened one in Isle of Wight last year, have won contracts in Derby and I believe have an active proposal in Manchester. This technology is certainly newer than burning our rubbish but it is far from unproven.
I am not an expert on waste recycling but I do have an open mind can you share with us a more reasoned case for your opposition to the Lib Dems¿ plan? I'd be happy to listen to it.
Every time I've looked into the details of a local issue it seems to me that the Lib Dems have had a better argued case.
Quote from the email sent to Helen Holland last night...
......start quote......
On the 27th January 2009 the Local Government Ombudsman published a report detailing the faults by BCC in the expansion of the Bristol Rovers Ground after a complaint from 30 residents, and how they did not take residents views into consideration. Although the Ombudsman has asked BCC to make changes to address these faults, he has given them the benefit of the doubt and taken their word that this was a misunderstanding (he obviously wasn¿t from around these parts).
......end quote......
The Labour administration was shown many times to have made a suspicious hash in their dealings with private partnerships - official and otherwise. I had an open mind I listened to the evidence and I formed my conclusion...Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Might I suggest that all those who had been harassing Labour over their Bishopston schools debacle now turn their attention to Tom Richardson (Chief Exec at the Cricket Club) and voice their concern or opposition about their plans for expansion.
People who live next door (i.e. my entire street) have not even had a leaflet from them explaining their plans.”
by g, Cotham
Wednesday, February 25 2009, 7:45PM
“Interesting take on it Mark, but it's not an idealistic answer, it's the way our system's set up. Of course no political system can encompass everyone's views, but it should, within a framework that ensures the continuation of democracy itself, represent the views of the majority or the major proportion, depending on how you look at it. That's what an election is.
Politicians should not follow the majority view just to be elected again, but being elected again should, surely by definition, be seen as a side outcome of following the majority view. Besides, it's an odd conception of being self serving to see it as subsuming your own personal views and desires to those of others.
Cases should be put on all sides, hence the need for a pluralist system, but once the cases have been made and the people have decided, that view should be heeded. Of course wrong decisions will be made by voters (i never said they weren't), just as they are by politicians, but that's democracy. I personally have faith in people that they are more able to decide things for themselves than are a patrician or oligarch class. It's also harder for a specific interest group to influence and hold sway over a large number of people than it is a small number, again introducing a safeguard.
In the specific case of Bristol this is clearly the council's view too, conducting consultation on issues the whole time. If it were simply for the politicians to make the 'difficult' decisions, all we'd ever have would be elections.”