THE Conservative group on North East Lincolnshire Council has defended its decision to vote against having a three-week consultation on the future of leisure services in the borough.
As reported, the proposal by the ruling Labour administration was passed with support from the Liberal Democrats at Thursday night's full council meeting.
However it was opposed by the Tories – and the borough's one UKIP councillor – after their call for a full select committee hearing on the subject was rejected by Labour.
The results of the consultation will be go before the leisure, tourism and culture scrutiny panel on December 3 so that recommendations can be put to Cabinet.
Conservative group leader Keith Brookes said yesterday that his party had voted against the Labour proposal because it did not go far enough.
He said: "The motion put forward by the Labour group did not guarantee that the scrutiny panel would form a select committee that would allow everybody who wanted to give evidence to put their opinions forward.
"Our amendment was a slight improvement on Labour's motion. If the Labour group wanted to be open and honest why did it not accept it?"
But Labour council leader Chris Shaw said the Tory amendment was "unnecessary" and would have delayed matters.
He said: "What is the point of waiting until next year? We either do this or we don't."
Liberal Democrat group leader Andrew De Freitas said: "In the end we supported the original Labour motion because at least by referring it to scrutiny we can have another look at it, even though a select committee would have been much better.
"If we had gone along with the Tories we would be basically saying, no more consultation, that's the end of it. Quite frankly I think they have shot themselves in the foot."
