Councillors clash over 'arrogant' vision for city

Birmingham City Council's ruling Labour group has come under fire from opposition councillors over a vision for the city's future.

The authority's new corporate plan sets out its priorities for the next three years and how it intends to address governance and financial challenges, after it declared effective bankruptcy, in 2023.

Leaders say they want to make the city fairer, greener and healthier, by exploring issues such as housing need, unemployment and child poverty.

At a meeting where the plan was unveiled, leader John Cotton said the vision showed a "determination to right previous wrongs", but the Conservative group said it was "arrogant" and a possible "Labour election pitch".

Tory councillor Deirdre Alden proposed an amendment stating that any long-term strategy should be based on the mandate delivered by voters following all-out elections next May.

She said the administration should focus until then on balancing the books, resolving equal pay and ending the bin strike, among other priorities.

"Time and resources should not have been spent now on developing a strategy for the years after 2026," she said.

"It's arrogant and it starts to look as if council resources have been spent on a Labour election pitch."

Cotton described the plan as a "milestone", adding it was a "clear demonstration of our ambitions for Birmingham".

Liberal Democrat group leader Roger Harmer suggested the Labour administration was instead a "millstone around the necks of our city".

Green Party councillor Julien Pritchard argued the council's plans did not "seem to survive contact with reality".

In response to the Conservative amendment, Cotton said it removed "forward-looking ambition".

"I certainly, as leader of this council, make no apology for being ambitious for Birmingham," he told the chamber.

"I've never stood in this chamber and speculated about what happens in future elections, I think that's a fool's game," he said.

"But I do know Brummies will not accept a politics and a vision that's built on negativity."

The effective bankruptcy declaration triggered a wave of cuts to services and plans to raise council tax by about 20% over two years.

Issues that contributed to the council's financial crisis, according to external auditors, include an equal pay row, disastrous implementation of a new IT system and inadequate housing services.

And a bin strike that started with one-day walkouts in January, is now in its sixth month.

The corporate plan was approved but the Conservatives' amendment was not passed.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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