Southend-on Sea: Council's Tory budget changed by opposition

Tony Cox, the council's Conservative leader, has had his budget amended by opposition parties

Southend-on-Sea City Council's minority Conservative administration has had its budget changed by opposition parties.

Labour, Liberal Democrat and independent councillors joined forces and passed an amendment.

The council's opposition leader, Labour's Daniel Cowan, said there would be cheaper parking and more community support officers to tackle anti-social behaviour.

The council's leader, Tony Cox, said the original Conservative budget focused on "stability, growth and public services".

The Tories voted against the revised budget, but the party was out voted and the new budget will now be delivered.

Mr Cox said the opposition "has not learned from its past mistakes and continues to make reckless decisions and false promises to residents, which will take us back to square one".

In a joint statement the opposition groups said their changes "will enhance the budget". The measures passed included:

• Retaining most of a dementia support team including four full-time positions

• Reducing parking charges in most zones by an average of 11%

• Hire three new community support officers to address anti-social behaviour

• Three new civil enforcement officers to tackle parking near schools

• An extra £2.5m for pavement and road repairs

• Reducing the increase of burial and cremation costs, so they rise by 10% rather than 20% and 15% respectively

• Reinstate some post-18:00 GMT parking charges (except for Southend passholders) to raise revenue

The city's Mayor, Stephen Habermel, told a meeting that the budget would still be balanced with the opposition's changes.

However, Mr Cox claimed in the council chamber that officers had told him "the budget will not balance with the opposition amendment".

Labour's Matt Dent said funding cuts to the dementia care service "were not something we were prepared to go along with".

'Protect our children'

The Conservatives took over in May after four years of a Labour-led coalition with Liberal Democrat and independent councillors.

Ron Woodley, a councillor from Residents First, supported the Conservatives after the local elections last year, which helped the party take control of the council.

But at Thursday's budget meeting Residents First joined the rest of the opposition.

Mr Woodley said the Conservatives budget "didn't go far enough and it took out services that residents are very committed to".

Mr Woodley, who led the council from 2014-16, told the BBC: "In the short term we do need to get things right. To remove the dementia navigators was wrong and we do need to protect our children going to school.

"But in the medium term, we need a real efficiency drive to reduce our base costs by at least 21%."

The Conservatives proposed £14m savings in January, which included £250,000 from decommissioning an Essex-wide dementia support service.

In February, it announced it would be “hiring dementia navigators to ensure the dementia support groups continue”.

Despite the Conservatives having changes forced onto its budget, it was not expected for there to be an immediate change in the political parties running the council.

A third of the authority's seats are up for election in May.