Ben Bradley facing calls to resign as Nottinghamshire County Council leader

Ben Bradley is facing calls to resign as Nottinghamshire County Council's leader as opposition members accuse him of "squatting" at County Hall. Councillor Bradley says he intends to carry on as the Conservative-led authority's leader, subject to his own group of councillors backing him at their annual general meeting next week.

His leadership will then formally be confirmed at the public meeting of the full council at 10am on May 16. But before that meeting takes place, the Independent Alliance opposition group want an extraordinary meeting to be held.

The extraordinary meeting would be held at 9am on May 16 and would debate a motion of no confidence in Mr Bradley's leadership. The request for the meeting will be considered by council bosses.

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The motion which would be debated at the meeting reads: "This council has no confidence in the leadership of Nottinghamshire County Council. Over the past few years, the Conservative administration who run this council have had one aim and objective - that being to get the current leader of this council elected as the Mayor of the East Midlands Combined Authority at the expense of providing a good level of service across all departments of this council.

"We therefore call for the immediate resignation of Councillor Ben Bradley as leader of Nottinghamshire County Council." It comes after Councillor Bradley lost to Labour's Claire Ward in the East Midlands Mayor election on May 2.

Councillor Jason Zadrozny, the leader of the Independent Alliance, said: "Over the past few years, Tory Ben Bradley has been entirely focused on getting elected as the new Mayor. As a result, the council has failed residents over the state of our broken roads and pavements, education, our finances are in a parlous state and much more. They can't even get the basics right.

"During the Mayoral election, Ben Bradley made a number of personal attacks on the new Labour Mayor. Ben Bradley's position as council leader is untenable and we plan to put that to the vote next week. It's time he moved to one side, admitted he has failed our county and stopped squatting in County Hall."

Councillor Bradley responded to the request for the meeting by saying: "I hope Jason enjoys playing these childish games. I will be getting on with my job working for local residents, just as I always have."