Reform council leader defends by-election cost

The Reform UK leader of a council has accused other political parties of hypocrisy over their reaction to the cost of a by-election, after one of his councillors resigned.

Wayne Titley won the Eccleshall and Gnosall ward for Reform earlier in May but faced criticism over a social media post around immigration and stepped down.

His resignation means a by-election at an estimated £27,000 cost and the Conservative leader on the council called it a "waste of money".

But Ian Cooper, for Reform, said he would not "take any lectures from the other parties".

"If you look at Staffordshire alone, Conservative MP Chris Pincher stood down, if you look at the figures, parliamentary by-elections cost in the region of £250,000," he added.

"You always get people that drop out, Mr Titley decided to drop out, we move forward."

But Conservative group leader Philip White described the resignation as shocking.

"I asked the leader of the council to apologise for that, for the waste of money, £27,000 we're told and for putting the people of Eccleshall and Gnosall through an unnecessary by-election process," he said.

"He refused to apologise."

Thursday saw the first meeting of the new county council since the election.

Questions at the gathering from opposition councillors, about issues such as special needs provision, highways and budgets, were met with the same line of response from Reform UK cabinet members.

They said they would wait to "mark the homework" of the previous Tory-led administration before responding.

Cooper added that he would like to repeat that council work had only just started for the newly elected Reform members.

"There is a settling in period, steep learning curve for everyone involved," he said.

"In the background we've got things going on. We have a forward plan to think about".

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