'Hopefully they all do their homework': What Huddersfield wants to see from councillors during 'stalemate'
With a leaderless council and half a chamber that “genuinely don’t understand” the rule, Huddersfield residents have made just one wish.
Last week’s annual council meeting (May 20) went viral after the group leader of Reform UK on Kirklees Council, Sarah Wood, branded elements of the agenda “undemocratic”.
She said four times that Reform were new to council procedures and therefore didn’t necessarily “understand the rules”.
The meeting ended in a stalemate, with Coun Wood and the opposing candidate – council group leader for the Green Party, Andrew Cooper – unable to secure a majority after two rounds of voting.
As the hung council period continues, it’s Kirklees residents who are bearing the brunt of the loss. All day-to-day council services are running as normal, but while there is no political leadership, it appears the locals are all asking the same thing – for everyone to do their homework.
Chatting to residents in Huddersfield Town Centre, locals like Mike Forster, 70, said they were “disappointed” that no conclusion could be drawn after the stalemate, calling it “unacceptable”.
Meanwhile, Jackie Grunsell, 53, feared that the 43 newly elected councillors simply “hadn’t done their research”.
Jackie said: “I have seen the footage and I think Councillor Tanisha Bramwell summed it up; These councillors have been given the information they need and they haven’t done their research.
“(Some members) are also town councillors and so are people who are capable of advising, but it looks like none of them has bothered to research key fundamental issues.”
For younger residents like Jack, the only parts of it they had seen were “streamed online”. Jack said: “Some of them I heard were saying they ‘didn’t know what a constitution was’, but hopefully they end up doing their homework next week, I guess.”
Kirklees Council has been called back on Thursday, May 28, to successfully elect a council leader.