BCP Council agrees budget after leader's resignation

A council whose leader resigned in a row over council tax has agreed a 4.99% increase to the charge for 2023/24.

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council met on Tuesday evening to agree the contested budget and to appoint Conservative Phil Broadhead as leader.

Drew Mellor stepped down last week after resistance from officers and opposition councillors to his plans to limit council tax to a 2.99% rise.

The budget was agreed after all amendments were voted down.

Liberal Democrat councillor Mike Brooke said the minority Conservative administration had plunged the council deeper into debt.

"It is currently somewhere in excess of £700m," he said.

"When we started this council it was in the region of £400m.

"That is how they have tried to balance the books - by putting us into debt and by taking away the earmarked reserves."

The council later confirmed to the BBC that the approved debt is £1.344bn which is "subject to robust business cases".

One of the proposed amendments included a cut to funding for the annual Bournemouth Air Festival, which attracts more than a million visitors to the conurbation.

Mr Broadhead told councillors: "I sat in a meeting with hoteliers and other hospitality people only a few months ago - I assured them I would do everything to keep the Air Festival because it is so important to their businesses.

"This amendment would let them down."

Analysis: Peter Henley, political correspondent, South of England

First there was a plan for the council to sell 3,000 beach huts to itself, vetoed by government minister Greg Clarke as a "dodgy deal", then the push for 3% rejected by the council's own officers as potentially illegal and, finally, the dramatic resignation of leader Drew Mellor.

It's been a tumultuous time for BCP Council, one of the 10 largest in the country.

The amendments were voted down, including one on the casting vote of the chair. The budget passed, but with 17 against 20 abstentions, Conservatives clearly a minority administration, and the hotly contested local elections in less than 70 days time, I suspect a lot of the speeches from last night will turn into slogans shortly coming through your letterbox.

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