The Conservative and Queensbury Independent Group on Bradford Council have called a vote of no confidence in Labour's leadership of the council. 

The vote will be held at the next full council meeting on the 15th of October and has been called after a string of failures by the leadership of the Council. The most recent scandal being the news that the NEC Group were pulling out of the £50 million Bradford Live project, just weeks before Bradford's year as City of Culture is due to begin. 

Councillor Rebecca Poulsen, Leader of the Conservative & Queensbury Independent Group said, “Whilst my colleagues and I have had ever decreasing confidence in the ability of the Leader of the Council and her Executive Committee to provide the best for the people of the Bradford, the latest debacle of Bradford Live, the project which saw over £50m of taxpayer’s money spent on a palatial but nonetheless currently in limbo building, has been the straw that has broken our collective back as a group of Councillors. For months and months Councillors and the public have been kept in the dark over what is happening with this project. In light of the fact that the Leader of the Council and her Executive Committee; needed to externalise Bradford Children’s Services, due to numerous issues highlighted in a succession of negative review findings from external inspections, caused the Council’s perilous, potentially effective bankrupt finances, built One City Park – a resounding flop which will struggle to meet just its long term financing costs to the Council, even if it is, somewhat implausibly fully let, very soon, can’t build a market to schedule or budget, or tell residents what is going on at the Interchange despite the Leader of Council being on the committee which decides this, having repeatedly humiliated the district on the national stage in the run up to the City of Culture Year, we decided that it was finally time to instigate a vote of no confidence. We have been deliberating taking this step for some time, but feared that it may cause further upheaval in a collapsing Council. However, it is clear that the current Leader of Council and Executive Committee are learning nothing from their never-ending tally of mistakes. We had hoped that the Labour Group would themselves choose a new top team, but it is now clear that they do not believe that they have more capable people amongst their ranks. Whilst a vote of no confidence is effectively ‘the nuclear option,’ this never-ending series of disasters simply cannot continue. It has to end now. Consequently, at the next Full Council Meeting in October, we will be calling for the existing Executive Committee to be replaced by a cross-party Executive Committee of people who the Council deem better equipped to stop the Council from being a national laughing stock.”