Public not happy with plans to scrap city assemblies

Sheffield Council’s community assembly scheme was launched in 2009 by then Liberal Democrat council leader Paul Scriven, with the city split into seven areas each with a separate budget.

The Lib Dems said the idea would bring an end to a system of “favoured areas” which had seen money spent in the same
neighbourhoods for decades
while other communities missed out.

However, the scheme was consistently opposed by the Labour party, which is now back in control of the council, and earlier this year Coun Bryan Lodge said scrapping the assemblies would save £2m.

The decision has been criticised by people living in some areas of the city, but Coun Lodge has defended the move, saying the council has to save £50m in the next financial year.

The Labour group claims resident participation in the assembly system has been low and has added that the extra layers of bureaucracy required are a luxury the city can no longer afford.

Instead, the council plans to put £280,000 a year into a team of officers to support councillors in their wards and provide a £300,000 grant fund for individual wards, replacing £1.6m of grants handed out by assemblies.

But last night the Liberal Democrat group said a public consultation had shown “widespread opposition” to the council’s plan to end community assemblies and return to Labour’s ‘favoured areas model’.

Coun Alison Brelsford, the group’s communities spokesman said the exercise had revealed that just 26 per of respondents supported the decision to scrap community assemblies.

She added that just nine per cent of those who responded supported plans to cut grants for community projects and groups, which community assemblies administer.

Plans to return to a ‘favoured areas’ model, where investment is targeted at a few handpicked areas, was also opposed by local people.

The consultation showed 63 per cent of people were opposed to that plan.

Coun Brelsford, said: “Community assemblies have given local people a real say in how the tax they pay is spent in their community.

“It’s clear that local residents don’t want a return to the dark days when all decisions were made behind closed doors by Labour’s town hall bosses.

“Council taxpayers have also said loud and clear that they don’t want a return to Labour’s ‘favoured areas’, where cherry-picked areas are singled out for preferential treatment.”