Labour Councillors on Bradford Council have today voted through plans that will see the closure of two tips in Keighley and Ilkley - DESPITE 13,000 responses to Bradford Council’s budget proposals from across the District and over 10,000 signatures from local people urging the Council to "save our tips".
As reported by BBC News on 5th March 2024, Bradford Council’s financial problems – which led them to introduce this budget – “are largely driven by a huge overspend by its crisis-hit children's services, which were taken over by an independent trust last year”.
This followed the murder of toddler Star Hobson in Keighley in 2022, and an Ofsted report which concluded that “corporate and senior leaders” at Bradford Council had “overseen further decline” over consecutive years, leaving children “at risk of harm”. This led to Bradford Council spending over £110 million of its financial reserves in a single year.
The same Council Leader who was found to have overseen these failures still remains in place and led the budget vote on 7th March.
A list of the budget measures passed by Bradford Council includes:
- Closing two Household Waste and Recycling Centres in our area - Golden Butts tip in Ilkley and Sugden End tip in Cross Roads.
- Increasing Council Tax by a minimum of 4.99%
- Around £7.5m of cuts to Older People's Services and Adults with Disabilities
- Closing Ingleborough Hall Outdoor Activity Centre
- Cuts to Community, Neighbourhood and Youth Services
- New Car Parking Changes for residents and businesses
- Increasing Garden Waste and Bulk Collection fees
- Increasing Sports & Leisure Centre Fees
- Selling off Council-owned properties in our town via a new asset disposal strategy
Reacting to the budget vote, Robbie Moore MP said:
“Today, councillors in Bradford have voted for you to pay the price for their own children’s services scandal, ignoring thousands of local residents in the process. This budget slashes vital services across our area, unleashes new costs on hardworking people and takes a sledgehammer to Keighley and Ilkley’s history, widening the ever-increasing funding imbalance between our area and Bradford city centre.
It is quite frankly astounding that instead of joining the united efforts of our community against these plans, local labour councillors in my constituency instead sided with Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe and rubber-stamped these plans - even voting against an amendment from the Conservative Group which would have kept our tips open and saved Ingleborough Hall.
The case to take Keighley and Ilkley out of Bradford Council control and form our own unitary authority has never been stronger. I hope that local residents, councillors and community figures of all political backgrounds will join me in this fight in the coming weeks and months.”
