Bristol Greens accused of cluelessness over City Council finances
The Green Party say they only became aware of how bad the authority's finances are after this Spring's local election
Green councillors on Bristol City Council are being called "clueless", after claiming they had not realised how bad the authority's finances were, before winning May's local election.
The party became the largest on the council three months ago and is now essentially in charge, with council leader Tony Dyer saying they need to find £22 million worth of savings by the end of next March. His party is accusing the former ruling Labour group of setting an "unrealistic" budget earlier this year.
The warning over the perilous state of the council’s books came during a meeting of the strategy and resources policy committee on Monday, August 12.
Cllr Dyer said: “Increasing demand allied with high inflation has driven up costs and continues to drive up costs, meanwhile the resources available to respond are stretched thinner each year. We’re not alone in this situation, and some local authorities have had no option but to declare bankruptcy.
“The list of councils who are edging nearer to this position is large and sadly growing. We face another year of multi-million pounds of overspend.
"Our latest forecast estimates that the authority is on course to spend £22 million more in the general fund than the amount budgeted for in February.”
When councillors set the budget in February, the Greens, then in opposition, refused to vote for it. Then in May the Greens largely took control of the council after winning just under half of the seats, ending eight years of Labour rule.
Green Cllr Heather Mack, now deputy leader of the council, said: “I called out this year’s budget as not realistic when it came forward, which is why Greens didn’t vote for it.
"Until we actually saw the books, we didn’t know quite how bad it was and how many failures we have received from the Labour administration.
“When we were setting this budget, Labour painted a pretty picture about our finances and didn’t support the Greens in our plan calling on the Conservative government to ask for more money. They kept being like ‘no it’s fine, it’s fine’.
However, Labour are calling that suggestion "outrageous".
Cllr Kelvin Blake said: “We did balance the budget for eight years with significant funding pressures. We do need more funding for local government, no doubt about it.”
Cllr Tim Rippington added: “I think that’s an outrageous statement to say that we did nothing to try and convey to the government the state of the finances and that we needed more money.”
Meanwhile, cllr Don Alexander, who sat on Bristol's cabinet with former Mayor Marvin Rees, is calling the Greens "clueless".
In a post on X he said: "If they didn't know, then they weren't listening.
"Marvin repeatedly spoke about the council's finances and local government funding.
"Just Google it."
Indeed, speaking to Greatest Hits Radio in 2022, then Mayor Rees said the council faced a funding shortfall of £19.5 million that year, caused by a combination of an increase in demand on services, lost revenues and inflation.
In December 2023, then council chief executive Stephen Peacock told councillors that the authority was facing "unprecedented challenges and unsustainable demand”.
Then, when setting the council's most recent budget in February, Mr Rees said the city was in "a very real financial crisis".