Two hears of Labour leadership come to an end via confidence and supply agreement.
Decided by a single vote at a Redditch council meeting, hands overall control of the authority to the Conservatives, who won four seats in May’s elections. Reform UK, which claims seven seats, will take mayoral and deputy mayoral roles, in addition to committee chairs relating to planning and licensing.
Labour holds 13 seats on the council, but is now in opposition following three independent councillors who have given support to the cross-party deal which sees Matt Dormer, ousted in 2024, return as leader. According to those involved, the arrangement was ‘the only way of leveraging change’.
‘People voted for change, and that’s what we’ll be giving them,’ said Cllr Dormer. ‘What we have here is a Conservative administration with broad support from some other groups – the independents and Reform. We’ve got to crack on and get things done for Redditch now – people voted for change at the local elections, yes the Conservatives weren’t necessarily that change, but this is the only way of delivering change.’
Image: Rock Staar / Unsplash
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