Appeals for a £250,000 one-off cash injection to smarten up Accrington town centre were rejected by Hyndburn council as part of this year’s budget.
The Tory opposition set out plans to boost revenues as well as the withdrawal of funds from reserves to invest in the Floral Market Town Initiative and the town centre.
But the Labour group described the ‘fag packet’ policies as ‘nonsense’.
Tory leader Coun Tony Dobson told the council’s budget setting meeting: “Towns like Burnley have been squeezed just as much as Hyndburn and they have flowers. I was trying to galvanise the council into a vision of a better Hyndburn for everybody.
“I know some members had concern about reducing the reserves by £250,000 but we felt that was a figure that was fair and balanced and had been reviewed by a number of people both inside and outside the council and was doable.”
Other Tory proposals included increasing the work carried out by the cleansing team and council-run MOT centre and transferring the council’s ‘bulky goods’ service to a local charity.
Council leader Miles Parkinson said: “A one-year hit to provide some flowers with the risk that the council have with Brexit seems negligent, and if you are going to spend £250,000 we want to spend it on jobs and not flowers.”
Labour’s Coun Tim O’Kane said: “The Conservative budget had 95 words in it. I got hold of a fag packet and when you count all the words and government health warning it’s 105 words. There’s more information on a fag packet than in the Conservative budget.”
