'No one comes out of these Arun council meetings looking good'

Councillor Gunner was re-elected as council leader on Wednesday (18 May) with 25 votes to the opposition leader’s 23 votes.

He became Arun’s youngest ever council leader when elected last May.

Jacky Pendleton (Con, Middleton-on-Sea) will continue to serve as deputy leader.

The Conservatives currently run a minority administration with 24 seats.

The Liberal Democrats have 16 seats, there are seven independents, the Arun Independent group has four seats, the Greens have two, and there is one Labour member.

Wednesday’s full council meeting saw numerous points of order which left no room for the council leader to outline his vision for the district.

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Gunner said the vote demonstrated his group’s confidence in him, despite Lib Dem claims some members were ‘unhappy’.

“Anyone can look at the numbers in the chamber last night and see that every Conservative would have voted for me in a secret ballot – they didn’t have to,” he said.

Mr Gunner added that he ‘dreads’ walking into meetings and has called on the opposition to talk policy not politics.

“No one comes out of these things looking good,” he said, “It’s a bit like MPs expenses: everyone remembers the duck house but nobody remembers which MP, from which party, had the duck house.

“Annual council meetings are meant to be ceremonial events, not a political fight.”

Opposition leader James Walsh (LDem, Beach) lost the leadership vote but vowed his party will be ‘fighting to win back control’.

He ruled out working with the Conservatives, saying: “We have nothing in common.”

Mr Gunner echoed this, saying he ‘can not see a way forward’ with the current Lib Dem leadership and ruled out giving them higher profile roles on committees as he said this would effectively be a coalition.

Dr Walsh called on the council to resume a review of its Local Plan and says pausing this has led to ‘building everywhere on green fields’.

But the Conservatives say they are ‘delivering’ including the public realm improvements and £19.4 million of Levelling Up funding.

Mr Gunner says he will continue work to attract businesses to the district.

“I want a big sign up as you drive into the district saying: ‘We are open for business’,” he said.

He also confirmed that the council will be bidding for Levelling Up phase two and his main focus will be the economy and environment.

“This is why we’ve got money for events and town centres; the High Street Fund; we’re doing the public realm works; and the levelling up fund,” he said.

“We got more money for Changing Places toilets than the entire county of Cornwall.

“We are doing fantastic work on these things but the opposition do not want to argue about any of that; they want to argue about policies and procedures.

“Hopefully people can see that I’m being pretty successful at getting some money into this council.”