Confidence motion at UDC exposed to be based on fabrications by Westminster opposition parties

The Motion of No Confidence filed by the Westminster opposition at UDC has been exposed to be based on fabrications and dismissed.

R4U’s Cllr John Lodge, who is Leader of Uttlesford District Council, said “After debate and scrutiny by all councillors, the opposition confidence motion has been exposed as a political stunt that was all innuendo without evidence, and built on mistruths. It was voted down by two thirds of the councillors.  While it is unremarkable that a political opposition doesn’t agree with a governing party, the motion stated a number of important things as ‘facts’ which they know were not, in an attempt to mislead the public, press and their colleagues. Furthermore there were valid concerns about revealing Council’s legal strategy for overturning the Stansted Airport expansion, which is why council officers recommended it be held in confidence so the content of the debate could be reviewed before it was released.  The recording of the council meeting in its entirety has now been released into the public domain.  It is of note that even a number of the Westminster opposition councillors who signed the motion couldn’t even be bothered to turn up to the Council Chamber to support it. The amount of council time it took to arrange, facilitate and manage this unnecessary meeting is unjustified.  Instead of playing politics like the Westminster opposition, we believe the council should be focusing on getting the job done.”

Cllr Lodge continued “This administration is proud of its track record. It was voted in by the biggest local election landslide in the UK to change UDC for the better, and that is what we are doing. A £multi-million deficit has been turned into a surplus, shielding the taxpayer and protecting services. The Council has invested £millions in programmes to help local businesses recover from Covid, fight Climate Change, and invest in district-wide sports and community facilities. We’ve delivered the first Residents Charter at UDC and are half way through a 4 year programme to re-engineer the council operations around the needs of residents. The local Westminster parties may not like the fact we’ve parked our picnic blankets on what they consider are their village greens – but that is not our concern. We were voted in to deliver a better council for the residents and that is what we’re doing.”

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