Cllr Geoff Brodie shares his reaction to last night’s budget vote. catch up here. Ed
Independent Labour councillr Geoff Brodie’s Budget amendment (see here) last night fell just 5 votes short of the ruling Conservative’s agreed proposal.
Thanks to the votes of all 14 opposition councillors and two Conservatives (with a further two Conservative abstentions, including a Cabinet member) his proposal lost by 21 votes to 16. Other amendments fell by 24-14 and 23-14.
14th successive budget amendment
This was Cllr Brodie’s 14th successive budget amendment and apart from a run of being accepted between 2014-16 they have mainly lost by huge Conservative majorities.
Geoff said,
“I was quite surprised to get some Tory support, but I suspect that was mainly about the overnight parking charges, which are deeply unpopular in Newport and Ryde. Of course none of the other 14 were whipped, unlike the 21 Tories.”
Cllr Brading’s comments criticised
Cllr Brodie also criticised the remarks of Cllr Paul Brading (Lake South councillor and Cabinet Member for Children’s Services) who during the debate commented, that “children should take their fair share of cuts” in response to Cllr Brodie’s attempt to stop the annual cutbacks to Family Centre funding.
Cllr Brodie said,
“I have a valued Family Centre in my Newport East ward; a ward with 43% of children living in official poverty. I was very concerned that the councillor responsible for this area of Council work feels that their services should be further cut.”
