City Council delegation travels to London to ask for fairer funding for city

THE leaders of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties on Nottingham City Council will travel to the House of Commons on Monday to demand fairer funding for the city.

They will be joined by trade unionists, council house tenants and representatives from the Meadows PFI bid.

The PFI programme would have seen hundreds of homes built or redeveloped in The Meadows but has been axed by the Government.

The city council will also lose �60 million of funding from the Government for 2011-12.

The delegation will meet Nottingham South MP Lilian Greenwood and Nottingham East MP Chris Leslie.

It is not clear if they will be meeting anyone from the Government, and Broxtowe MP Anna Soubry has described the venture as a "political stunt".

The Tory MP criticised council leader Jon Collins for only contacting Prime Minister David Cameron by email on Wednesday, which she argued was not enough notice, nor the correct channel for organising a ministerial meeting. She also criticised the council for not organising the meeting before the Government set its budget.

Miss Soubry said: "I'm absolutely spitting feathers about this. It's absolutely right that authorities should lobby ministers and that's why the chief executive and leader of Broxtowe Borough Council came down to London last year and had a proper meeting with Eric Pickles and Bob Neil.

"You don't lobby the Prime Minister by giving him two days' notice. It's a blatant political stunt and I think it will damage Nottingham's reputation. I think it's disgraceful and I've asked to know who's paid for this."

A council spokesman said an invitation was "extended to politicians of all parties to come along and meet the delegates" but was unable to confirm if anyone from the Government would be there.

However, Mr Collins said: "Nottingham representatives are together asking the Government to reconsider its spending plans, to re-look at the formulas that have been used to fund public agencies and to factor in deprivation and need as a measure of fairness.

"We hope that through this lobby, we can get across the impact the funding reductions will have on Nottingham."

Councillor Gary Long, leader of the Liberal Democrats at the council, said: "Nottingham has been hit hard by funding cuts. Local government as a whole has faced much higher cuts than other parts of the public sector."

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