Leeds arena, the City Varieties and road repairs saved by Lib Dems

4.23.00pm GMT Mon 3rd Dec 2007

Cllr Richard Brett (Burmantofts & Richmond Hill), Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Leeds City Council and executive board member for central & corporate services, successfully moved an amendment to a Labour motion calling for the council to abandon plans to use its capital receipt from Leeds Bradford International Airport to fund a range of key projects in the city, including an arena, the restoration of the City Varieties and road repairs; at a recent meeting of Full Council.

After the meeting Cllr Brett said:

"While most attention has been placed on the fact that Labour wanted to stop the council from proceeding with plans for a new arena and the restoration of the City Varieties the largest single item of expenditure which the sale of the airport will allow us to proceed with is the refurbishment of roads across the city. Since we took power in 2004 the road repair capital budget has increased from £3.65m to £13m. We hope to further increase it to £14m next year. Labour's plans would mean deteriorating roads in nearly every area of the city."

Cllr Mark Harris (Lib Dem, Moortown) added:

"In Moortown we have seen capital expenditure on roads jump from £179k in Labour's last year to £247k in the current year, with plans to spend another £490k next year. If we had continued to starve the road repair budget of funds we would be faced with a major disaster. Investment like this is pivotal to keeping our roads in a reasonable state of repair. We would like to do more, but we can honestly say we have a made a big difference."