Protesters opposed to cuts to children's centres in Hillingdon were removed from a council meeting by security after heckling councillors and storming into the council chamber.
Hillingdon councillors met on Thursday night (February 24) to debate the 2017/18 budget which included funding cuts and closures to children's centres in the borough.
The controversial proposal to close centres in Hayes and Northwood and to bring all of the facilities under council control was unanimously approved at the Civic Centre in Uxbridge.
Shortly after the meeting started at 7.30pm, a group of protesters began heckling councillors from the public gallery, chanting “no ifs no buts no education cuts.”
Security called into the chamber
As security escorted the protesters out of the building, one stormed into the council chamber before being apprehended.
Hillingdon Council has frozen council tax for the ninth year in a row and has declined to raise tax through the social care precept.
'Ride out a real financial storm'
Leader of the council, Cllr Ray Puddifoot , said: “Setting the council budget is not only about freezing or raising taxes and charges, it is about maintaining service delivery and facilities for residents.
“Despite continuing reductions in central government funding and a rising population, our policy of working on a daily basis to provide sound financial management and our continual business transformation programme is enabling us to ride out what is a real financial storm for local government.”
The Labour group on the council proposed three amendments to the Conservative administration's proposed budget - creating two new job roles to tackle antisocial behaviour in the borough, particularly in the south, abolishing the children’s burial charge for families in the borough, and removing children’s centre cuts.
'We feel that we are now on the precipice'
Labour councillor Jazz Dhillon said: “We feel that we are now on the precipice.
"The cuts made to services in the borough are pushing us over the edge.”
But the Labour amendment was thrown out by councillors as just 20 councillors voted in favour, and 42 against.
Despite strong opposition to the children's centre changes by Labour councillors, the original budget was unanimously approved after around two hours and 15 minutes of debate.
'The most vulnerable will suffer'
Cllr Jan Sweeting spoke against the cuts, saying: “The Labour group concur with the views of Hillingdon residents who are not convinced by the rhetoric that you can cut half the service budget and that things will continue as before, or even better.
“Its the youngest and most vulnerable who will suffer if these cuts proceed.”
The council has said the reductions in children's centre funding will not affect services as they will be made more efficient.
The budget included the continuation of free weekly waste and recycling collection, keeping open 17 rebuilt or refurbished libraries, and investment in new schools, museums and a dementia centre.
Hillingdon Council has also racked up £54million in local reserves in order to “deal with the financial challenges that lay ahead for local authorities".
Keep up to date with the latest news in west London via the free getwestlondon app.
You can even set it to receive push notifications for all the breaking news in your area .
Available to download from the App Store or Google Play for Android now!
