Radical plans to give the people of Willenhall more of a say in how things are run and what their priorities are were put in danger thanks to the actions of Willenhall’s new UK£P councillors who sat back on a crucial vote  and allowed Labour to take control of the town’s Area Partnership.

“It was clear from something the Labour Group Leader said that there had been some collusion between UK£P and Labour on just who should chair the Willenhall Area Partnership” said Lib Dem Cllr Ian Shires after last night’s Adjourned Annual Council meeting .

The move came late on in a night of highs and lows which first saw the Lib Dem/Tory administration voted through for another year by the narrowest of margins as a Labour motion to remove the current Tory Leader of Walsall Council was kicked into touch when it failed to receive the required majority vote. Voting was tied at 29 votes for and 29 votes so the motion fell.

In his speech to Council last night Ian said:

“It will come as no surprise that the Liberal Democrats won’t be supporting the motion proposed by Labour. Why should we? It would be like turkey’s voting for Christmas.

“In laying out its store Labour have made it quite clear that no other group would be allowed to water down their all things to all men manifesto commitments. Whatever we do you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

“In which case it makes sense to take a position where we can at least influence what goes on in the next 10 months or so.

“Clearly, with the introduction of the Marmot Objectives and Local Area Coordination along with Participatory Budgeting giving more powers to Area Partnerships, and the work that we’ve done on re building the Voluntary Sector it makes sense to continue as we have done over the past 2 years working within a Coalition with the Tories.”

Another casualty of the night was the capital bid which would have seen two state of the art leisure centres built in Walsall. One at Oak Park Walsall Wood the other at Bloxwich replacing the ageing facilities which currently exist on both sites.

Again it was Labour who waded in with a spoiling tactic to defer a decision on the funding  for one Council cycle to enable Scrutiny to look at other possible alternative sites. Again by what the Labour Leader said in moving the deferment that he had had some sort of a discussion with the UK£P Leader to help him in his task.

Labour sited that further scrutiny was needed over concerns that the planned Bloxwich Leisure Centre would encroach onto Leamore Park. True an area equal to half the length of a football pitch would be affected. However the Council was giving back a piece of land twice that size to the park in recompense. There were also concerns about the cost of the new centres.

Labour seemed split over the reason for the deferral move. Those from Bloxwich were concerned over the land issue and the cost involved, others from the Willenhall area seemed to think that they could high jack the Bloxwich proposal at the expense of their Bloxwich colleagues.

With what looked like a deal being struck between UK£P and Labour we were left with no option but to wade in with our votes to support the Labour amendment.

“After the meeting the UK£P Leader admitted to me that their first meeting had been a baptism of fire and that she and her group had not really understood what they were doing” said Lib Dem Group Leader Ian Shires.

If that’s the case then at best UK£P can’t be trusted and at worst they are totally incompetent and way out of their depth. We suspect it’s both…….