A ROW has broken out among councillors after an extraordinary meeting was held after calls to freeze increasing council tax.
Conservative Group leader Darius laws tabled Thursday evening’s meeting calling on the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Green party running Colchester Council to amend the budget rubberstamped by the Tories.
But the Conservatives have been lambasted by their counterparts for “wasting” time and taxpayer money after they abstained from the motion they proposed.
In February, the then Conservative-led council passed the budget for 2022/23, with a £4.95 council tax increase among the plans.
The motion at Thursday’s meeting called for a freeze on council tax, the implementation of an ecology officer and a £100,000 investment into a pump to fix the Hythe’s flooding woes.
However, having tabled the proposal, Conservative councillors then abstained on the vote.
Colchester Council’s deputy leader Adam Fox branded the Tories a “shambles” for what he labelled an "unworkable” motion.
“This was a complete waste of time and council resources from Colchester Conservatives,” said Mr Fox.
“They proposed changes to their own budget approved in February and then refused to even vote for it.
“Colchester Conservatives have just cost local taxpayers thousands of pounds when they face a cost of living crisis.
“In stark contrast, the new joint administration have already committed resources to supporting those most in need of help in the coming months”.
Mr Laws, however, denied he was playing politics and argued he was just giving the Liberal Democrats the chance to deliver on “gimmicky” local election promises.
He said: “The biggest gimmick in the room is the Lib Dems put in a leaflet the only way to take back control and freeze council tax was to vote for them.
“We didn’t pledge to freeze this because actually with inflation as it is that would be a bit challenging.
“I called the meeting to let them stand on their words and they didn’t. I abstained because I didn’t want people to say ‘but you put through a budget when you were in administration that had a very minor increase.”
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