BROMSGROVE District councillors have rubber stamped plans for a council tax freeze and set the authority's new budget.

There were heated discussions as the budget and council tax were debated at the last full meeting of the authority held on Wednesday, (February 25).

The freeze means band D residents pay just over £200 annually for district council services - £2.24 extra for average parished residents.

Councillor Michael Webb, the finance portfolio holder, said the budget would deliver no cuts in services, freeze council tax, move council offices to the Parkside site, and invest in a new Dolphin Centre when other councils were closing their leisure centres.

Cllr Webb said the savings officers had made had ensured the authority was on a steady foundation, to be able to offer their budget to residents.

He also added that any claims by opposition members the council tax freeze was a U-turn were purely untrue.

Alternative budgets were proposed by the opposition groups.

Councillor Luke Mallett, the leader of the Labour group, proposed the group's budget including plans for a Bromsgrove Food Festival, free swimming for under 16s and over 65s and introducing free Sunday parking.

Suggested savings to pay for the proposals included cuts to expenditure on consultants and the IT budget.

Cllr Mallett welcomed the council tax freeze, but said: "This is a U-turn by a greedy, Conservative administration desperate to win an election."

Councillor Brian Cooper criticised the alternative budget as a pre-election exercise and said what worried him was clearly the aim was to spend money.

For the first time the Independent group also submitted an alternative budget.

In presenting the budget Councillor Steve Colella proposed free Sunday parking, that almost all the £1.2 million new homes bonus money be given to communities to invest, and called for a halt to building a new Dolphin Centre.

Cllr Colella said in a time of austerity and budget cuts, the Conservative group "seemed to be leading us into a dead end".

Cllr Webb said he was shocked by the budget and particularly criticised the plan not to invest in a new leisure centre, which he described as critical to the health and wellbeing of residents in the district.

Cllr Colella responded to this by saying it was unfair to taxpayers not living near the town centre to be forced to contribute to the project for the next 50 years.

Votes were taken and both alternative budgets were thrown out, with the budget and council tax freeze being voted through.

After the meeting, Cllr Webb said: "I am pleased that this ambitious budget has been approved.

“I found it incredibly worrying that the budgets presented by Labour and the Independents were very sketchy.

"They refer to cuts to funding, but don’t set out how these cuts would be accommodated, and what impact they would have on services."

• BROMSGROVE District councillors also voted to freeze allowances at their current rate at the meeting.

A reduction in the allowance for the chairman of the licensing committee was also agreed, as a lower number of committee meetings have been held in recent years.

Council leader Margaret Sherrey said: “It would be incredibly irresponsible to have increased allowances for Bromsgrove councillors whilst we have to make savings elsewhere."