Conservative councillors refused to debate proposed amendments as they looked to adopt the budget for 2018/19.

14 amendments to the budget proposals were put forward by the Liberal Democrats at South Hams Council’s full council meeting on Thursday, but Conservative councillors, who have a clear majority in SHDC, refused to debate any of them.

This was made obvious when one Conservative councillor raised his hand and was quickly met with cries of “no, no, we said no” across the chamber and the hand was retracted.

Cllr Julian Brazil, Lib Dem, said: “I think its a rather sad reflection on the administration of this council that they refuse to debate alternative ideas. There are certain things that we agree with [in this budget], we’re not here to score political points, we put forward what we think is best for the people of the South Hams. ?“What we feel, what we believe our budget is, is supporting our local businesses, it is supporting our market towns and it is opening up the opportunity for our young entrepreneurs and creative people within the South Hams to drive economic growth.

“All we have come up with in the last few years are some mad-cap scheme that have cost us hundreds of thousands of pounds for lawyers, consultants and officers’ time and in members time and have come to absolutely nothing.

“All we’ve done is spent a lot of money and we’ve earned absolutely nothing.

“What we’ve done here is put forward 14 amendments, and we accept that you might not agree with them all, but I hoped you’d at least have the guts to debate those with us, but you’ve chosen not to.”

The amendments were then rejected, without debate, by 6-23 with one abstention.

The Conservative budget proposals, which includes raising council tax by £5, to install pay-on-entry to public toilets, reduce council tax support to town and parish councils by 9.85 per cent, increase parking charges by two per cent and “ring-fencing” £3.5 million from the Business Rates Retention Earmarked Reserve for “employment for the creation of local jobs and to better support the local economy”.

Cllr Simon Wright said: “This budget considers the financial pressures we face as a council and is by no means a backwards facing budget, quite the contrary. Instead, we are ceasing an opportunity to create a budget that starts delivering. ?“We are putting funds aside to allow investment in our communities. Tomorrow we consider local housing, local employment and residents. I fully support it.”

He also said the council were looking at the possibility of building council houses.

Budget proposals were passed by 23-7.

Local councils are under increased pressure in their budgets as they will stop receiving any funding from central Government, from next year.

A full report will be in the papers next Friday.