City Council report – June 2026

Annual General Meeting

This meeting is mostly ceremonial and takes place unusually during the day with ex-councillors and family invited. Normally, everyone knows how things will turn out but in this case with the council in no overall control, we did not. As LibDems, we were not keen on supporting either a Labour or a Green administration. Labour put up Katie Thornburrow as leader twice and she was voted down by both LibDems and Greens after which the meeting was adjourned for a week.

In the intervening period, lots of negotiation took place between LibDems and Greens which ultimately failed, and then between LibDems and Labour. LibDems agreed to abstain from the leadership vote in return for some things that we had been campaigning on for residents. There is no on-going agreement. Labour have agreed to work collaboratively with other parties.

The council is now set up as a Leader-Cabinet model, which is why the leader is so important. The Cabinet is appointed by the Leader, and the Cabinet takes about 95% of the decisions in the council. What remains, is taken by the Full Council and the most important of these is the budget decision. This is where Labour have agreed to have a cross party working group, to work on and come up with a budget. There is only one year left for the council and so this will be the last budget ever for the District Council.

Civic Affairs

The committee approved the amended councillor- officer protocol which had not been reviewed for a while to reflect best practice.

Long serving councillors Richard Robertson, Baiju Thittala and Anna Smith were recommended to be made honorary councillors.

Licensing

King Street Brewhouse applied to extend their licensing hours and to be able to show films on the premises.