Environmental focus for new Winchester City Council administration
A focus on the environment has been named as the top priority for Winchester City Council’s new Liberal Democrat administration.
The new Cabinet has also been announced by Leader, Cllr Lucille Thompson.
The new administration said its focus would fall on three key areas - reducing the carbon footprint of the council and wider district, balancing the budget, and building homes for all sectors of the community.
Cllr Thompson said:
“Our over-riding priority is to put the environment at the top of our agenda. We have set some very clear challenges for ourselves – not least to make the council carbon neutral by 2024 and the district by 2030. The start of this is adopting an emergency declaration on climate change.
“We want to drastically improve our offer on recycling and want to look at introducing a food waste collection. The quality of our bin collections also needs immediate attention.
“We will review the council’s financial position to address and close the financial gap, and we will be looking at innovative ways of building more homes for rent and seeking to provide truly affordable homes in the right places across the district.
"All of our work will be underpinned by an open and transparent decision-making process.”
Following the results of May’s election, the Liberal Democrats now have 27 councillors and the Conservatives 18.
The new Cabinet is:
- Leader with portfolio for communications and transformation - Cllr Lucille Thompson
- Deputy Leader with portfolio for finance and risk - Cllr Neil Cutler
- Cabinet Member for environment - Cllr Lynda Murphy
- Cabinet Member for built environment and wellbeing - Cllr Jackie Porter
- Cabinet Member for housing and asset management - Cllr Kelsie Learney
- Cabinet Member for sport, leisure and communities - Cllr Malcolm Prince
- Cabinet Member for local economy - Cllr Anne Weir