Councillors accused of acting like 'spoilt children'

A council leader has accused councillors of being "a bunch of spoilt children" and "reckless" about a city's future.

Leader of Gloucester City Council Jeremy Hilton made the comments after a heated meeting on Monday saw councillors voting down a decision to consult the public about changes to how the authority should be run in coming years.

A proposal was put forward to ask the public what they thought of having a parish council in Gloucester, which would retain the roles of a ceremonial mayor and sheriff.

The new parish council could come into effect after the city council is abolished and is merged into one or two unitary authorities across Gloucestershire.

Most of the county already has parish councils responsible for things like public toilets and war memorial maintenance - but much of the city of Gloucester is not a parish.

As a result, councillors wanted to get the public's views on whether the city should be become a parish or not, along with keeping the ceremonial roles of mayor and sheriff.

They planned to launch a consultation, but opposition councillors voted against it.

They were concerned about how quickly this was happening and a lack of detail to present to the public on how it would work.

The city council is run by the Liberal Democrats who are the largest party but do not have an overall majority.

Council leader and Lib Dem Hilton said he was "totally shocked" councillors had voted against consulting the public.

"I think sometimes they just behave like a bunch of spoilt children," he said.

"They haven't got their way on a number of things and they were being reckless, but they were being reckless with the future of Gloucester."

But opposition councillors said the proposals lacked detail and were trying to be rushed through.

Councillor Sajid Patel, deputy leader of the Conservative Group, said they voted against the consultation because the plans were being rushed.

"We said, 'you've had three and a half months to discuss this with us'," he added.

The Conservatives are in favour of keeping the ceremonial roles, but not more parish councils.

Patel said a parish council would cost more for the people of Gloucester through council tax.

Meanwhile, councillor Terry Pullen, the local Labour Group leader, said his group did not vote for it because the consultation lacked detail.

"We haven't voted against this per se, what we have asked the council to do is go back to the drawing board, bring forward a detailed and fully costed proposal [and] bring that back," he added.

Something that the Liberal Democrat leadership said frustrated them was the fact that opposition councillors sitting on the General Purposes Committee had voted for the consultation to go to council - before voting against it at the council meeting.

Alastair Chambers, leader of the Independent Group, said: "I voted for the proposal to go to council on the basis that prices, costs were going to be shown in the consultation to residents.

"You can't ask people to consult on something they don't know is going to cost them," he added.

The Liberal Democrats say the decision as to whether Gloucester keeps its mayor, its sheriff and whether it gets a parish council is likely to be kicked into the new unitary council, with shadow elections taking place next year.

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