A Labour councillor has accused Conservative councillors of 'playing politics' and trying to identify 'sexy' areas for additional spending after the Conservatives called for an extra £2m to be spent tackling homelessness in Milton Keynes.
Cllr Nigel Long has told MKFM that Conservative councillors put forward an extra £6m in unfunded commitments at last week's Milton Keynes Council budget.
One proposed amendment included using an additional £2m from Council reserves to tackle rough sleeping in Milton Keynes, which was defeated by Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors last week.
Cllr Long said: "The Tories put forward about £6m worth of extra spending without credibly saying where it would come from in a year where we had to make £14m of savings."
"Part of their £6m was £2m on top of the £4.5m we had already put in for homelessness. So it would have been an extra £2m not needed."
"I think they were playing politics. Trying to identify sexy areas and extra spend knowing that a well run Council, as Milton Keynes is, would not accept extra spending above what is needed and already planned for."
The conservative spokesperson on finance, Cllr Edith Bald, said "Cllr Long's claim that conservatives put forward £6m of unfunded changes is absolute bunkum. Conservatives proposed just over £3m of changes and every single one of them was backed by the Council's Finance Director.
She said, "£2m would make a big difference to the street homeless and with reserves standing at £165m is entirely justified.
Street homeless were almost forgotten in Labour's budget, receiving just £400k. Labour really need to start practising what they preach and get something done to help these people."
Apart from the investment of £2m to help the street homeless, conservatives proposed to spend £500k on road improvements including pot holes, road markings and lighting, and the remainder on a range of service improvements including litter and graffiti removal, weed spraying , rat control, road gritting. There would also be more money for the front line at some children's centres, and libraries and for investigating reported cases of abuse of adults in social care.
