WYRE Forest District Council will have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new budget for the next year after councillors failed to agree on any of the cost-saving plans put in front of them at Wednesday night's meeting.

Radical proposals to plug a predicted £2.7 million funding gap left in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic were due to be agreed by full council, but after a deadlock - with 16 members supporting the plans and 16 rejecting them - the chairman used his deciding vote to quash the Progressive Alliance's Medium Term Financial Strategy.

Two amendments proposed by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Group also failed to reach a majority vote.

The Progressive Alliance's budget included plans to increase council tax, share services with other councils and sell all or parts of its headquarters at Wyre Forest House in order to cut costs, while the Conservatives pitched investment in CCTV to tackle fly-tipping and the Lib Dems called for a pot of £5,000 each year to be made available to fund small community events.

During a four-and-a-half hour meeting, Conservative Group leader Cllr Marcus Hart criticised the Progressive Alliance for not working with his party on the budget.

He said: "Not one of our proposals has been taken on board by the Progressive Alliance.”

Conservative Cllr Nathan Desmond added: "We have a well constructed, well thought out budget that offers a clear road map ahead, or the [Progressive Alliance] choice is a very bland, substantive motion, lack of detail, lazy budget setting by the leader, obviously done by someone who can't be bothered."

Lib Dem Cllr Fran Oborski also criticised the Alliance's budget, describing it as "the least progressive [budget] I have ever seen in 48 years".

Cllr Oborski said: "The main parts of the Liberal Democrat's amendment is reduced Localism targets as we know from experience so far that the administration’s targets are unobtainable."

She added: "There is nothing in this budget to brighten up the lives of our residents."

But Cllr Ballinger defended the plan, saying: "What we have here is an acceptable and deliverable budget. We've balanced the books and that is what we have to do."

The council leader hit out at the Conservative's budget, particularly its proposal to put a freeze on staff pay for three years.

He said: "You talk about fag packet calculations. What [the Conservatives] have been doing I think they did on the way to this meeting."

Prior to the vote, Labour's Cllr Sarah Rook asked for assurance from the leader that there would be no job cuts to frontline services this year.

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But after Cllr Ballinger replied that "no council leader could give that assurance at the moment", Cllr Rook abstained from the final vote, resulting in a tie, and the budget was ultimately rejected by chairman Cllr Shazu Miah's deciding vote.

The budget setting for 2021-22 is now expected to take place on March 1.

Commenting on the situation, Cllr Ballinger said: “It is disappointing that councillors were unable to agree any of the proposals before them yesterday evening.

"I will now work with the other political group leaders to identify a budget that will secure a majority when the council meeting resumes.”