02/08/2026
Beverley Addy - former cllr, Matthew McLoughlin and I allocated funding from last year’s ward budget for the repair of equipment at Scapegoat Hill park. Comments from Reform councillors saying that this is not the case are untrue.
Prior to the local elections, we were waiting on a quote from the parks team on what the replacement equipment would cost. We were also working with members of the local community on additional funding if that would be required. Reform’s post also does not acknowledge the work of the community.
In Labour’s budget, we supported proposals from the Lib Dems and Greens to increase the ward budget that councillors can spend on local projects and give as grants to community groups. If the Reform councillors want to spend some of this extra money on park repair on top of what has already been committed, then that is positive and we should put politics aside to support this.
The council employs a dedicated team who help ward councillors administer the ward budget and will have advised on previous ward budget allocations. All new councillors will have had a training session on the ward budget at their induction. I don’t know whether they attended this training. It is not reasonable for the current ward councillors to say they did not know about this ward budget allocation.
We also offered to do a “handover” with the new Reform councillors and they refused. This offer still stands, if they apologise publicly for previous racist, misogynistic and derogatory remarks. Everyone matters in our community and they need to demonstrate this before they receive our help.
