No agreement yet on Lewes council power sharing

Three political parties are still negotiating over how Lewes District Council will be run over the next four years.

The local election of 4 May has left the Greens as the largest party with 17 councillors, while the Liberal Democrats have 15 and Labour nine.

The three parties had previously run the authority together.

An agreement is needed before the annual council meeting on 22 May, when a new leader must be chosen.

A statement from the Green Party in Lewes said: “In the past 10 days, all parties had reached agreement on a new way of working, however we have now had confirmation that the national Labour Party have informed our local Labour colleagues that they currently do not have their approval to take part in a cooperative alliance together with ourselves and the Liberal Democrats."

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, a Labour spokesman confirmed that the national party had declined to sign off on the formation of a three-way alliance.

Liberal Democrat group leader James MacCleary said: : “We have been negotiating an agreement to run the council since the election, and it was hugely disappointing that Labour’s central committee vetoed the previous agreement we had."

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