Six hold sway on council

Six members of Newark and Sherwood District Council are now responsible for making key decisions.

A council meeting agreed to reduce the number of members of its cabinet from seven to six, all of whom are from the ruling Conservative group.

The cabinet system was started in 2001.

At the time the then council leader Mr Stan Crawford (Lab) said they needed eight members to provide a balanced workload. The first cabinet was made up of four Labour councillors, three Conservatives and one Liberal Democrat.

That changed in May, 2003 when the Labour, Liberal Democrats and Independent groups joined forces.

The Conservatives refused to take any seats and so it was made up of four Labour councillors, two Liberal Democrats and two Independents.

Four months later a pact between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats meant the Conservatives claimed seven of the seats and the Liberal Democrats had one.

In 2005 cabinet membership was cut from eight to seven. All the places were kept by the Conservatives with the only Liberal Democrat, Mr Peter Harris, losing out.

Since then the cabinet has been made up just of Conservative councillors.

The leader of the council, Mr Tony Roberts, said work previously done by the late Mr Richard Alexander had been done by others since he had become too ill last year.

Mr Roberts said that had given them the chance to see how the work could be shared out more evenly.

Mrs Gill Dawn (Ind) said a larger cabinet made up of different political parties rather than just the Conservatives would have been more democratic.

Mr Brendan Haigh (Lib Dem) was concerned that the cabinet was getting smaller, but agreed that the workload needed to be more evenly distributed.

Mr Allen Tift (Lab) was concerned that the reduction in numbers meant that power would be in too few hands.

Mr Roberts continues as the leader of the council and is also responsible for strategic and corporate policy.

Mr Roger Blaney remains the deputy leader with responsibility for development and regeneration.

Mrs Nora Armstrong is the cabinet member for the environment; Mr Roger Jackson for culture and leisure; Mr David Payne for health and homes and Mr Ivor Walker for community safety.

Mrs Dawn is the leader of the Independents, Mr Allen Tift the leader of the Labour group and Mr Brendan Haigh the leader of the Liberal Democrats.