Drew Mellor finally resigns!

Following the resignation of the Conservative leader on BCP Council, Councillor Vikki Slade, Leader of the Liberal Democrats' on BCP Council, has issued this statement:

It is clear that Cllr Mellor’s resignation has been a long time coming following a series of unforgivable financial decisions from the Conservatives that have saddled residents with mounting debt and wasted huge sums of tax-payers money on ‘dodgy deals’ and vanity projects and in some respects it is surprising that it has taken him so long to do this, given we have been calling on him to go for over a year.

What Cllr Mellor fails to acknowledge is that residents will face a huge council tax rise because of his administration’s serious mismanagement of the council’s budget. Now he’s ducking out of his responsibilities leaving residents to pick up the tab. During the scrutiny meeting earlier this month I called him a coward for putting forward cuts that would not bite until after the election and he has now proved to be exactly that – what more cowardly act than to resign just as your budget paper is published.

The Conservatives may be hoping that they can claw back some semblance of credibility in the run up to May’s local elections by switching their leader. But residents need to remember that all of their Conservative councillors and those who continue to support him from a supposed ‘independent’ position have been complicit in pushing the council further and further towards bankruptcy.