Bradford Council has run out of excuses
Watching Bradford Council’s latest budget meeting, it was impossible not to feel a mix of both fury and second-hand embarrassment for the controlling Labour group.
Over the past few years, the Council’s leadership has been a slow-motion car crash. Rampant financial mismanagement, millions in wasted spending, a children’s services scandal which still shames our District today.
And yet, at this meeting, there was not an ounce of contrition on display.
Instead, Council leader Susan Hinchcliffe, backed by every single Labour Party Councillor in my constituency of Keighley and Ilkley, stood up and voted for you to pay the price for their mistakes instead – a completely outrageous 10% increase in our Council tax.
It was a stark reminder of just how out of touch the Labour group’s leadership of Bradford Council has become.
Labour Councillors, one by one, stood up to claim they were victims of the last 14 years, conveniently ignoring the fact that just four years ago, they were assuring the public in their own statutory financial documents that the Council was in “good financial health” and was sitting on hundreds of millions in financial reserves.
Others blamed the council tax increase on Children’s Services costs– conveniently leaving out the fact that these costs have spiralled as a direct result of the Council’s catastrophic mismanagement of children’s services, with Council leaders found to have “left children at risk of harm” and stripped of control of children’s services in 2023 following the murder of Star Hobson and a damning Ofsted report.
Now, hardworking residents are set to pay the price.
On the ground, local charities and organisations are warning me of the devastating impact of this vote.
Keighley’s Good Food Shop has said the increase will throw many more Keighley people into poverty.
The local Salvation Army has reported a rise in people coming to them saying, “I don’t need food, but do you have any blankets?”
And at the same time, local services are being cut, waste and recycling centres have closed, and the Council is now considering selling off key assets such as Ilkley Lido and Keighley Market.
This is not the platform the Labour Party stood on prior to the general election, when Keir Starmer promised "not a penny more on your council tax".
And now, even some Labour councillors are walking away
Last week, former Bradford Labour councillor Marcus Dearden resigned, saying he “found it difficult to be part of a Bradford Labour Group where the leadership is no longer listening,” and calling his former bosses "autocratic".
Julie Lintern, another former Labour councillor in my constituency, had the whip removed for voting against the recent disastrous tip closures.
So there is clearly a rot in Bradford Council—a culture of arrogance, secrecy, financial recklessness, and a complete lack of accountability.
A litany of moral and political failures. Millions of pounds wasted, and children failed.
And if Labour won’t take responsibility, then the public must hold them accountable instead.
At the end of Bradford Council's budget meeting, every single other political party - including our hardworking local conservative team of councillors - spoke out and voted against these increases.
But they were outnumbered.
And unfortunately, this will carry on for as long as the Labour Party have a majority on Bradford Council.
We all need to be clear that the only way to put an end to this litany of failures is to vote our Labour Councillors out at the next local election.
Hardworking taxpayers across Keighley, Ilkley, Silsden and the Worth Valley depend on it.
