Guest Blog from Cllr Simon Wheale: Labour making the wrong choices for Manchester

Cllr Simon Wheale is the Leader of
the Manchester Liberal Democrats

By releasing the council budget to the Manchester Evening News, and putting their spin on it before anyone could possibly read the facts, Labour’s Town Hall bosses have shown where their priorities lie. Playing politics rather than doing the right thing.

By rejecting £1.5million of Government subsidy to freeze the Council tax, and proposing to increasing the Council tax by an inflation busting 3.7%, they have made the choice to pick the pockets of the hard pressed Manchester Council Taxpayers rather than accept cash from Government.

For every £100 they put up Council tax they are only receiving £64 because they turned this free government money down. The Liberal Democrats will fight Labour’s cuts to front-line services across Manchester.

What is more, if Labour had taken the £1.5m of government money they refused, it would save all the leisure facilities and libraries threatened with closure including Levenshulme Baths & Library, Burnage Library, Chorlton Leisure Centre and Withington baths.

Will will always argue for more cash for Manchester, but it doesn’t help our case when we have £150,000,000 in reserves, or when Richard Leese gets a chauffeur driven car at local taxpayers’ expense, or when nearly half a million pounds of Council money was blown in one night last September, on a free concert and bar for VIP celebrities and Labour Councillors.

Or when cash is offered, it is turned down.