A Lichfield Labour councillor has warned residents that voting for candidates from “minority parties like the Lib Dems and Greens” could hand victory to the Conservatives.
Cllr Colin Ball’s comments come after an independent candidate said Lichfield District Council would only be able to change if voters opted for alternative elected representatives.
Joanne Grange, a former Tory councillor who will now stand as an independent, said residents should not expect the current controlling group to fix some of the issues facing the area, such as the expensive Friarsgate failure.
But Cllr Colin Ball, who will again stand in the Curborough ward at the local elections in May, warned residents needed to think carefully about how a new-look council could be achieved.
“If people do want real change for the better, their vote needs to go with Labour,” he said.
“The great risk in local elections, with our first past the post system, is that a vote for minority parties like the Lib Dems or Greens, noble though they may well be, means that you end up with a Tory councillor, rather than a Labour one – and I can’t think why anyone would want that after the brown bin tax, the Friarsgate fiasco and record council tax increases, to name but three issues.”
Cllr Ball said residents needed to ask questions of the role potential councillors have played on fighting for their areas.
“I didn’t see any Lib Dems at the school gates gathering signatures in our campaign to stop the Tories ending school crossing patrols,” he said.
“The small, but highly effective, Labour group on Lichfield District Council have raised more fuss about genuinely affordable housing, protecting the green belt, Garrick Theatre funding than the Lib Dems ever have.”
