Brentwood Borough Council held its Annual Meeting tonight, with changes expected after Brentwood Conservatives lost overall control of the council after the local elections on 22 May.
Outgoing mayor Cllr Madeleine Henwood (C) announced that her year in office raised over £5,000 for both the Citizens Advice Bureau and Diabetes UK.
Cllr Barry Aspinell (LD) nominated Cllr Vicky Davies (LD) for the position of Mayor and this was seconded by Cllr William Lloyd (Bwd First). Cllr Roger Hirst (C) nominated the current Deputy Mayor, Cllr Mark Reed (C), and this was seconded by Cllr Henwood.
Cllr Louise McKinlay (C) spoke to express her disappointment that Cllr Reed had not been put forward as Mayor and thanked him for his work over the last year. Cllr Aspinell said that he appreciated Cllr Reed’s role as Deputy Mayor and handled his appointment very well.
Cllr Davies was duty elected as the new Mayor of Brentwood by 19 votes to 18. She thanked members for electing her and hoped to fly the flag for Brentwood at every opportunity. She announced that her chosen charities for the year would be St Francis Hospice, Brentwood Talking Newspaper and Brentwood Community Print.
Cllr Roger Keeble (Ind) was elected unopposed as Deputy Mayor for the forthcoming year.
Members then voted to change the constitution to allow the members to elect the Leader of the Council. Cllr Faragher (C) spoke before the motion and, among angry scenes, accused the other parties of a power grab and questioned whether they had a mandate to lead the council.
Outstanding opening speech by Cllr Paul Faragher highlighting lack of mandate for Lab / Lib coalition that will be leading @Brentwood_BC
— Louise McKinlay (@LouiseMcKinlay) June 11, 2014
So sad to see a display of huge disrespect for Brentwood's Mayor just now by Conservatives. Shouting. Refusing to sit down when asked.
— Russell Quirk (@russellquirk) June 11, 2014
Cllr Mynott (LD) responded by saying that the Conservatives had not won a majority of seats in any election since 2011, and that the accord parties had been voted in at the ballot box.
Cllr Aspinell was duly elected as Leader with Cllr Lloyd Deputy Leader. He said that the parties had signed an Accord because they loved Brentwood, and not because they “hated the Conservatives”, as Cllr McKinlay had previously asserted. He promised that the new administration would be more transparent, and wanted to create additional revenue generation which would help deliver services and benefits for Brentwood, and improve the housing stock for the borough.
Cllr McKinlay said that she was very proud of her administration’s record and she predicted that the forthcoming year would be a year of “PR, PR and PR”. She had there were no proposals as to how to finance the proposed spending.
Cllr Lloyd said there was a new opportunity for parties to unite and put forward a plan to put Brentwood first. Cllr Mike Le-Surf (Lab) added that the previous opposition parties had been united in frustration and disappointment and that he was looking forward to strong debating in the future.
