A protest took place whilst the councillors came together for the budget plans.
As Labour and Conservative councillors clashed over budget plans amid an ongoing row about cuts to bin collections in Enfield.
On Wednesday (February 27), the Tories unveiled an alternative budget they claimed would allow the council to keep weekly bin collections and help tackle the borough’s high crime rate.
A protest took place whilst the councillors came together for the budget plans.
A group of protesters stated that austerity must stop and Labour councillors should not allow the Tory government to make additional budget cuts.
Stating that “Enfield council has cut over £178million from the budget in last 10 years, this has had the most devastated effect on the most vulnerable people in our sociality, the elderly, the disable putting children at risk. What is esay this people are vulnerable they need our help and they cannot take any more years of austerity and cuts”
“Our role is to come and fight for this people who cannot always come and fight for themsleves…”
During the budget meeting inside, Council leader Cllr Nesil Calişkan defended her party’s budget, saying it would protect services for the most vulnerable residents from austerity “imposed on us by a callous and incompetent Tory government”.
Enfield Council needs to save £18 million by 2020 and has already been forced to cut £161 million from its budget since 2010.
Cllr Calişkan said: “The Tory government that the opposition members support is making an ideological choice to decimate public services – and try and blame us for it.
They have not told us how they would fund the £2.8 million gap that would create over the next two years if they did not implement waste collection changes.
Compare us to the Tory council in Barnet, who are implementing a scheme that will take away £2.3 million from some of the poorest people in the borough.”
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