New Lab-Con coalition emerges in Council Chamber

Last night's Council meeting started with all political parties agreeing that the new Council homes in Sewell Place, Hillmorton were wonderful. One councillor went so far as to say that even the local wildlife supported the scheme as the new houses had built in bat boxes and hedgehog runs. Cllr Richard Dodd (Lib Dem, Paddox) said he looked forward to seeing similar high quality schemes elsewhere in the borough.

Then there was the debate on Labour's proposal to abandon the window replacement programme in order to fund a rent freeze - see http://rugby.lib.dm/a7SQC .

After that we had the new sight of Labour and Conservative councillors working together to block Liberal Democrat proposals.

In the discussion about next year's Council housing budget the Liberal Democrats had proposed an initiative that would enable more new Council homes (like Sewell Place) to be built. Speaking in favour of this amendment Cllr Neil Sandison (Lib Dem, Eastlands) said that in many parts of Rugby there was Council owned land lying next to existing houses which could be used for housing. The tories said that the Council should not be too hasty in building new Council homes and when it came to the vote all but one of the Labour councillors voted with them. With Labour and Tory councillors voting together the Liberal Democrat proposal was voted down.

It was the same story on new housing targets - see http://rugby.lib.dm/a7SQC . No Tory councillor was prepared to acknowledge that their planning failures had exposed Rugby to developers being able to set aside the local plan and bring forward schemes across the borough. "How could we ever balance the books without the government's new homes bounty?" asked one Tory councillor. At this point Labour weighed in on the side of the tories with their leader Claire Edwards saying "We have to have a starting point".

Once again it was down to Cllr Neil Sandison to stand up for common sense. Cllr Sandison said that developers and even the government's planning inspectors could use higher housing numbers to over-ride Rugby's Local Plan. "We could see our green belt and green fields disappear at a phenomenal rate" Cllr Sandison warned.

Once again the Labour and Tory parties combined to vote their scheme through.