Haringey Labour turned down the opportunity to publicly acknowledge the huge growth of support for the Liberal Democrats shown by the people of the borough at the local elections, by voting in Labour councillors as both Mayor and the Chair of the Planning Committee at the Annual Meeting of Haringey Council last night.

The Chair of the Planning Committee is a role that local authorities should fill on a non-partisan basis, say the Lib Dems. The party agues that in the interests of fairness and ensuring that planning decisions are non-political, a member of the opposition party should be given the chair of the committee.

There has not been a Mayor from the west of the borough for several years, and the Lib Dems pointed out that in the interests of fair representation, this fact needed to be addressed. In spite of the very small majority that Labour now hold, with 30 councillors to the Liberal Democrats’ 27, they were willing to offer no concessions on the night.

Councillor Neil Williams, Leader of the Lib Dems, comments: “This just shows that Labour has not changed, and has learned nothing from the election.

“We are very concerned for the borough. The Labour party, even with its much-depleted numbers, is still divided into factions, and the election of Councillor Meehan as their leader will not help matters at all. He is a lame duck leader, who has the genuine support of just 18 out of 57 councillors – less than one third of the total. This will make for a very weak ruling group, which will devote its time to intrigue and infighting, rather than improving services in the borough. In contrast, we have a united Lib Dem team, which is ready and willing to serve the people of Haringey.”