Scarborough Borough Council leader faces vote of no confidence
It's the third time in less than three years a motion's been brought concerning Steve Siddons
The Leader of Scarborough Borough Council is facing another vote of no confidence today.
It is the third time a motion has been brought concerning Steve Siddons since he took on the role at the authority in 2019.
It has been called in by Independent member Roxanne Murphy of Seamer ward.
The motion said:
"On account of the present lack of transparency, inclusivity and respect evinced amongst members, change is urgently needed to restore public faith and confidence, a sound administration and a return to balanced debate. It is our contention that this can only be achieved by a change of leadership. We move that the current leader relieves himself of the leadership."
Speaking last month, Roxanne said:
"I feel during the pandemic he was nowhere to be seen. It was his deputy who we were continuously hearing from and that's not leading a council. When we as councillors have grave and serious concerns we would expect those to be addressed and to have the support from our leader and that's not happening.
"It was at the last planning meeting when there were remarks made to another councillor and to the general public that were quite frankly disgraceful and disgusting and especially as a woman, young mother, and in light of everything that's going on in the country this is something we should be debating.
"Yes we're a council, yes we all have opposing views but a leader's job is to try and unite, bring together and promote healthy debate and he's not doing that. The lack of communication and burying your head in the sand over things and hoping that they'll go away is not being a leader.
"Currently the debate that has been in there has not been healthy. It's been toxic. There's been poor decision making that the public don't want and we have to start listening to the public. They are the people that elected us and we have to listen to them and when they tell us they don't want something, it's not for us to tell them that they're wrong. It's for us to listen and have a healthy debate, which is currently not happening.
"When we look back at the last elections if we're being honest the Independents had a resounding win with the vote share, and if anyone is now to take that forward I firmly believe that it should be Independent-led. Let's get rid of the party politics and let's do the best for the borough for the remaining time that we have."