Warwick councillor highlighting county council's failure to comply with court ruling has his query shut down

An opposition group leader who highlighted Warwickshire County Council's failure to comply with a court ruling had his query abruptly curtailed in a spiky exchange.

Councillor John Holland (Lab, Warwick West) brought up the case of a resident whose property was impacted by surface run-off from Cape Road car park, Warwick, during the cabinet's consideration of changes to the council's customer complaints policy on Thursday (February 15).

Group leaders from opposition parties are invited to attend and contribute as the cabinet – the panel of Conservative councillors in charge of the county’s major service areas – signs off decisions.

Cllr Holland took the opportunity to voice frustration over the handling of the complaint, which he said the authority had placed in the hands of “expensive lawyers in Birmingham” only to lose in court.

Council leader Councillor Izzi Seccombe OBE (Con, Stour & the Vale), who chairs cabinet meetings, twice interjected, arguing it was "important not to involve individual issues that are under a judicial process".

Cllr Holland said: “The problems that my residents are finding are neighbour issues, like rainwater run-off from the Cape Road car park and damaging a neighbour’s garden where the council sent it to expensive lawyers in Birmingham.

“It has ended up in court, the independent engineer appointed by the judge has backed the resident with the work not being carried out.

“The latest I have had is that there isn’t a budget to provide a remedy as ordered by the courts.”

Cllr Seccombe cut in to say: “John, it is important not to involve individual issues that are under a judicial process at this point in time.

“I think this isn’t the place for that, I am very happy to take this outside and talk to you about it but it is not something we can discuss here.”

Cllr Holland replied: “Chair, of course I accept your ruling, but I would assure you I have tried every possible route.”

At that point he was cut off by Cllr Seccombe who said: “You haven’t tried me.”

As it turned out, there was no need to be coy. The council’s communications department confirmed the judicial process had concluded and that “budget will be identified” to remedy the issues.

A council statement added: “We anticipate that the approval for that will take place early next week after which the work can commence.”

That was news to Cllr Holland who confirmed to the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he had been told as recently as Wednesday morning (February 14) that the council had no budget to see through the work.