Havering Conservatives Alternative Budget That Proposes To Save Libraries And Increase Police Officers Is Voted Down By HRA.
“When the HRA tell us they have no choice, clearly they have. These are political choices they want to make. We choose to save the libraries and put more police officers on our street“-Councillor Keith Prince.
At last night’s full council meeting at the Town Hall in Romford, Havering Conservatives led by Deputy Leader Councillor Dilip Patel. put forward their budget.
The alternative budget highlighted, the saving of the the three libraries from closure, the locking of park gates at night and even an increase of two extra police officers across the borough. However, the vote was tied and the Mayor had the casting vote which favoured the HRA.
Councillor Keith Prince told the Havering Daily: “Last night was the ultimate test. The Conservative’s have shown that it is more than possible to save the libraries. Our budget amendment focuses on that but also found money to have two extra police officers in Havering. These would be beneficial across our town centres where we have seen a massive increase in shoplifting.
“We also have also managed to find money to reduce the amount of money we would need to borrow and this in itself over a long term would provide £50K worth of savings year on year.
“When the HRA tell us they have no choice, clearly they have. These are political choices they want to make. We choose to save the libraries and put more police officers on our street.”
Councillor Dilip Patel told Havering Daily:
“Last night we clearly put politics aside and put our residents first. We also showed that there are ways to save our libraries and have extra police officers. Importantly after that very awful incident at Raphael’s Park, we have shown that we can find measures to close our park gates at night, which is vital.
“This budget amendment was a way forward for our residents and we clearly showed by our voting that we were there to support those in favour of saving our libraries and closing our park gates. Unfortunately we were let down by the HRA and the Mayor who exercised his casting vote and put their budget forward that will close libraries.”
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The vote was 24 for and 24 against library closures with the Mayor using his casting vote to close libraries.
If all councillors had attended the meeting the libraries could have been saved, but alas 7 out of 55 councillors failed to attend the vital Budget meeting!