An 'unimpressive' alternative budget from Conservatives on Harlow Council was inaccurately costed, speculative, and would have risked the Council's finances, Liberal Democrats say.

The Conservative proposals were defeated at the budget meeting of the Full Council on Thursday 15 February. Commenting on the Conservative proposals, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Cllr Robert Thurston said:

"These plans are ill-considered, inaccurate, and complete folly. They rely on speculation about increased profits from a new joint venture company that's barely got off the ground, sponsorship and advertising revenue that they can't guarantee, and a massive increase in a Government grant that hasn't been confirmed.

They include unspecified savings, for which Harlow Council was rightly criticised in previous years, and which the financial strategy the Conservatives joined us in signing up to said we would no longer do. And they play fast and loose with the Council's capital budget, moving money into particular wards for purely self-interested reasons - a fact the Conservative finance spokesman claimed was 'purely coincidental'!

The Conservatives cost their proposal for free disabled parking in the Water Gardens car park at £20,000, when in fact officers advise that it would cost nearly three times that amount - leaving a gap of over £35,000 in their sums. The owners of the car park would be extremely unlikely to agree to it anyway!

They cost their proposal to reintroduce the old, poorly-attended Community Partnerships at £17,000 - a vast under-estimate, and another gap in their budget. And they want to scrap the very popular Police Community Support Officers, when the Council is bound by a contract and would end up paying to settle legal disputes with the police.

Finally, it needs to be remembered that last year's Conservative budget proposals - if we'd been foolish enough to agree them - would have added an additional £177,000 to the council's bills this year. So the Conservatives would have needed to make £177,000 of cuts this year to even start with - something they didn't factor into their calculations at all this year.

These unimpressive proposals would have risked the financial stability of the Council that councillors and officers have worked so hard to achieve, and councillors were absolutely right to reject them out of hand."