Gloucester V Cheltenham row erupts at council meeting

Published in Gloucester Citizen Newspaper on Wed 27th Jan 2010

​The age-old Gloucester versus Cheltenham row has been rekindled at a meeting of Gloucester City Council.

The Tory administration came under fire from members of the Liberal Democrat group over recent Audit Commission ratings of the council's work.

The commission gave the council a two-out-of-four rating overall - deeming its work as 'adequate'.

The authority was awarded a score of just one star for its ability to manage resources.

At the full council meeting on Monday evening, Councillor Jeremy Hilton, leader of the Liberal Democrats, proposed a motion calling for the council to note "with great disappointment" the "poor" scores it recently received from the Audit Commission.

Mr Hilton said that Gloucester could not compare with Cheltenham Borough Council's ratings, which included four three-ratings and one two-rating.

He said: "We should be better than Cheltenham. We should be the best council in Gloucestershire.

"It's interesting that Gloucester is run by the Tories and Cheltenham is run by the Liberal Democrats.

"It's just very complacent leadership."

Cabinet member for performance and resources Debbie Llewellyn (Con, Quedgeley Fieldcourt), said: "Thank you Councillor Hilton.

"This is not the score we wanted, but we always want to improve.

"Some of the data used was out of date, and they used a small sample size."

Council leader Paul James also defended his council, saying Cheltenham did have its faults.

He said: "If Councillor Hilton thinks that Cheltenham is an example of Liberal Democrat excellence, then maybe he should take it to the electorate and see what they think.

"After all, Cheltenham is a council which wasted thousands trying to sue its former chief executive and had £12 million in Icelandic banks.

"I think we recognise where we are now, it's not where we want to be, but we are only part-way on our journey."

Mr Hilton said his group was annoyed at the comments Mr James made in The Citizen when the figures were released.

Councillor Declan Wilson (Lib Dem, Hucclecote), added: "When I first read the press release on this audit, I was quite looking forward to reading the report.

"I was extremely disappointed to see how poorly we have performed."