THE starting pistol for the local elections in May was fired at full council at Redditch Town Hall on Monday, with the Conservatives successfully managing to lodge the bullet in their foot.
The politicking started early, the blue ranks quickly forgetting a presentation on caring and sharing by getting their teeth into planned increases in cremation fees and free cremations and burials for non-residents aged 18 and under.
Redditch’s cremation service, though of a high standard, is one of the cheapest in the country and the increases, of eight per cent per annum for four years, would bring it into the middle market while paying for improvements to the crematorium itself.
Sniffing votes, the Tories attacked, despite all the proposed changes having received the blessing of the Conservative-chaired Overview & Scrutiny Committee last autumn.
Undeterred, they branded the price rises a ‘tax on death’ without saying how else they would pay for improvements to the crem, which they fully supported.
They bridled again at the prospect of offering free cremations and burials to those 18 and under from outside the borough, a fair point, but one that had again passed through O&S. In fact back then only Councillor David Bush (Con, West) had raised concerns over the issue, but he’d failed to find a seconder for any amendment.
It took Councillor Anita Clayton (Con, Batchley & Brockhill) to bring a little sense to the blue ranks; she had actually taken the trouble to ask residents what they thought of the idea, and they had been against it.
By then though she was running against the tide and news that the service for out of town children had only been used 11 times last year brought the debate to a rapid close with the recommendations approved.
The Conservatives faired no better with the proposal to buy the lease of Crossgates House, judging that when times were tough the money would be better spent elsewhere, and that Redditch didn’t really need the space anyway.
However Coun Bill Hartnett (Lab, Church Hill) said the purchase was recommended by officers, would save the council £14,745 per annum and it would be wholly owned within 10 years. He added that the authority was already successfully renting out office space to Bromsgrove council to the tune of £36,000 per annum.
It was left to Councillor Paul Swansborough (Ukip, Winyates), who voted both for the cremation increases and purchase of Crossgates House, and who made the news simply by turning up, to have the last word: “It all makes sound business sense,” he said.
In the race to the polls Labour and Ukip were up and running, the Conservatives hopping up and down on the start line.
