THE new controlling Labour group on Warrington Borough Council has stolen the clothing of the previous Lib Dem/Conservative coalition, it has been claimed.
Former council leader Ian Marks (pictured) has made the claim in response to a challenge from new Labour leader Terry 
O’Neill that the opposition should be “fair-minded and constructive.”
He said: “Supporting the new Labour council’s policies should be easy, because nearly of them are the same as ours.”
Cllr Marks said Cllr O’Neill had paid the former coalition a backhanded compliment.
“They must have thought we got most things right! Labour failed to put forward an alternative budget but now say they will honour ours. They will focus on street lighting, cleaner streets, filling potholes, police community support officers, young people, discussions with the private sector, working closely with partners, the town centre, the local economy, Omega and a masterplan for the Waterfront.
“They will put people first, listen to what people are saying and encourage staff and unions to come forward with new ideas. This is welcome because we were carrying out all these policies ourselves!
“They have a new priority of creating 40 apprentices. We support this providing they tell us where the money is coming from.
“They want to reduce the number on the executive board. This is ironic because this is just what we wanted to do when we came to power in May 2006 but were stopped by Labour because of a technicality in the constitution.
“No increase in council tax this year is hardly novel because we set a nil increase in March as part of our budget.
“Cllr O’Neill complains about the poor financial settlement from national government and says that towns like Warrington are subsidising the south of the country. This is rich coming from the party that allowed £30m of our council house rents to go south, mainly to London Boroughs, by refusing to allow the transfer of our council houses to a housing association many years ago.
“Sadly Cllr O’Neill repeats the lie about our wanting to sell Walton Hall. This was never the case and he knows it. He claims credit for stopping the expansion of Gulliver’s World and Sankey Valley Park. He even uses the phrase we used earlier in a recent press statement about the scheme being ‘dead in the water’. “The truth is that this is nothing to do with Labour but a result of a shortage of public funding.
“His priorities ignore affordable housing for local people, neighbourhood working and closing the gap between the better off and less well off parts of the town. These would all feature in our list of priorities. We look forward to seeing how their policies unfold in the coming months. What I can say to him is that we intend to be a responsible and active opposition which is more than can be said of his party at the start of our five year term.”
Labour steals our clothing claim
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About Author
Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
7 Comments
Looks to me as if the man is doing exactly what Labour did. Moaning about the other party is not going to encourage people to vote, but will turn them off even more.
To say that the Youth was on their list, will not go down well, considering the debacle of the Youth Drop-in centre in the old Bank building, which they reneged on.
One thing that seems to have disappeared of the local political agenda is the shameful destruction of planning records. All parties have declared there will be a full open enquiry. What’s happening about that? What is the name of the mystery planning chief who destroyed them and retired in 2007? The people of Warrington need to know what has happened and what will be done to sort it out?
I agree with the part about the planning records… what are they all doing about it ?? However the Cllr Marks now alleges that that labour and the Libs now seem to have the same policies is good as maybe now thuy will all start to work together to actually achieve things rather than battling against each other all the time. Not that I agree with all their policies of course. Maybe it was the peopleand tactics the voters didn’t like rather than the poicies who knows. . . . .
Is Cllr Marks really this desperate? The LibDems were running the town hall so had a majority! If the leadership of the Party, i.e. Cllr Marks really wanted to drive through reducing the Exec Board, they could have out voted Labour… ?? After all how can a minority political party stop anything? This is typical of verbal diarrhoea that the LibDem party is now issuing and the main reason why voters are so turned off by them.
If the policies are as similar as Mr Marks insists then it must be that the voters lost all faith in him and his cronies and no longer trusted a word he said. That’ll be why he almost lost his seat as well as his job!
I agree and this is why I have called upon the Labour Leader to call Cheshire Police in to investigate. He has said that an internal investigation will take place. It’s not good enough and the wider public deserve better. What and who is being protected whats to fear from the police????
Here we go again! Does Coun Marks expect us to believe what he is now telling us. He has previously treated the elctorate with contempt. Does he think we all stupid, or what? Clearly the electorate mistrusted the Lib/Dems so much that they removed them from “power” and this is what upsets him. Clearly the elctorate think that the Labour Group that now control the Town Hall have something to offer. It is now coming near the time when Councillor O’Neill and his Group will have to let the Public know what he intends to do and we will then have the opportunity of endorsing his policies or, alternatively, removing them from office at a future election.