City council with no majority elects Labour leader
BBCCambridge City Council, which is under no overall control, has voted in a new Labour leader, who said the administration would "champion a collaborative approach".
The council had been controlled by Labour for more than a decade but it lost its majority in May's local elections as well as its leader, Cameron Holloway.
His successor, Katie Thornburrow, was elected at a meeting the day before the legal deadline, after another meeting failed to elect a leader.
Thornburrow told fellow councillors she acknowledged the support of the Liberal Democrat group in developing "co-operative arrangements" that enabled the administration to be formed.
Following the recent election, Labour remain the largest party on the council with 17 seats, while the Greens have 12 seats and the Liberal Democrats have 11.
Thornburrow, who had been cabinet member for planning and transport, said the new administration would champion "cross-party consultation, transparency and a focus on delivering key community priorities that reflect the city's evolving political landscape".
She said the council had to "manage the anticipated transition to a unitary authority" through local government reorganisation, as well as its local plan.
At the meeting, the Greens put forward their deputy leader Sefira Davison as leader of the council, but with the Lib Dems abstaining Thornburrow was elected.
The Greens issued a press release afterwards with the headline "Labour in power because of Lib Dems", adding that the Lib Dems lent their "tacit support to enable a continuation of the Labour-run administration, rather than agreeing to collaborate with Green councillors to bring about the change that residents voted for".
Davison told the meeting after Thornburrow's speech: "I've been particularly heartened to hear the repeated emphasis... on collaboration and listening.
"It's heartening to think the mandate for change that the city and, to an extent, the country is screaming out for is something that is being heard in the halls of power."
Lib Dem leader Tim Bick his party's priority was a "three-party joint administration", but that idea had "failed".
"Our interpretation of the election result was a call for change," he said.
He said the agreement made with Labour "doesn't impede the Liberal Democrats' independence as an opposition group on this council", and he said the group had used its "leverage" to secure agreement on some issues.
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