New leader to scrap council’s £1m office

James Alexander, 29, is determined to make big decisions after capturing eight seats to send the Lib Dems crashing out of office. Labour will officially take charge at the council’s annual meeting on May 26.

Coun Alexander said: “We will be the residents’ voice in the council, not the council’s voice among residents.” His party is to propose a new financial motion to the council reversing just under £1m of cuts previously approved by Lib Dem and Conservative councillors.

He said: “We will pay for this by increasing recycling and lowering the amount we pay in landfill tax, and scrapping a new £1.4m council office the Lib Dems planned to build in Acomb.

“This was a Lib Dem political priority but we do not need it. The Lib Dems even paid more than £350,000 for the land but we will sell it and put the money into flood defences.”

Another priority is to cancel the controversial “ftr bendy-bus” service which he says is extremely unpopular.

He said: “We will not be renewing the contract with the operators. People do not want it in York. These buses have very poor fuel consumption – only doing six miles to the gallon, they take up more than a lane of traffic making it difficult for cyclists and other vehicles to get round them.

Coun Alexander wants to meet the community stadium project’s key players “as soon as possible” and hopes to encourage York City Knights executive chairman John Guildford, who has called for the scheme to be abandoned, to “engage” with it. But he added: “I want to see all the information on the scheme I was previously not allowed to see under the Lib Dems on the proviso of it being commercially sensitive.”

He also said his party would increase targets for the number of York houses to be built each year.