Could we soon have a COAT running York council – a coalition of all the talents?
The Green Party is calling on the Liberal Democrats and Labour to work together with them to run City of York Council following the local elections last week.
The Liberal Democrats have the most councillors following the poll on Thursday – 21 – but are three short of the 24 seats needed to gain overall control.
The Green Party – which held on to its four council seats at the election – could help the group over the line.
But the Greens have also been in talks with Labour and have said they are interested in forming a coalition of the three groups.
A radical programme
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Although the combined vote of Labour and Green councillors would not command a majority, we have been keen to hear what Labour have to propose.
However it is difficult to see how we could get the kind of programme being talked about through if we had to also depend on votes of independent (ex-Conservative) and Conservative councillors.
Our preference would be for both Labour and Liberal Democrat parties to work with the Greens on a radical programme to tackle the climate emergency as quickly as possible.
We await a response from Labour as to whether or not they are willing to work with both Green and the Liberal Democrat groups.
A spokesman for the Liberal Democrats said their councillors are “talking to other parties and hoping to get somewhere over the next couple of weeks” but did not say whether a three-party coalition would be a possibility.
Labour has put offer in
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Labour is open to having discussions on any proposal that is in the interests of pursuing a progressive policy agenda for York.
We have put an offer to the Greens, which we are confident would work as an administration and begin to tackle some of the key challenges that have been allowed to drift over the past four years.
She said she wants to see “progress on addressing the climate emergency” and developing the city’s clean air zone plans.
She added: “The Greens need to be mindful of ensuring the council’s executive is made up of people with a genuine interest in delivering meaningful change for the city.”