In another extraordinarily chaotic Council meeting last night, councillors from all parties managed to put aside rancour for a few minutes to support a Liberal Democrat motion on child safeguarding.
Mark Kenyon, Liberal Democrat councillor for Grotton, Springhead & Lees, said: ”The recent report into CSE in the borough is a challenge for the Council to do things differently. My motion, which was passed last night, is a straightforward response that we can do straight away – it will mean that every single time council makes a decision, it’ll be explicitly weighed against the potential risk to children and on the level of Council spending locally.
“A lot of the time politics in this borough seems to be a pantomime and last night’s meeting was no exception. I’m appalled with the CSE abuse that has happened, I’m appalled with the way survivors have been treated, and I’m appalled by those using the pain of survivors as a political football to score points or worse, as a way to earn money.”
He concluded: “I’m grateful for the support of colleagues on all sides who put their differences to one side for a few moments to push this through. It’ll have a real world impact every single day and one that hopefully will be amongst the first of many positive responses to the recent CSE report”