As we forecast a week or so ago Cllr Dafydd Williams has been elected Leader of the York Council Labour Group.

The decision is only of significance if it means that he also becomes Leader of the York Council when it meets on 11th December. As it is a convention that the Leader of the largest group on the Council becomes its Leader, there must be a good chance that, for about 4 months, he will have an opportunity to remedy some of the mistakes made by the Council over the last 3 years.

Williams leaflet in September forgot to mention that Labour had scrapped grants to local community centres. Plea for “volunteer helpers” was a smokescreen

Cllr Williams has been an increasingly unpopular figure in the Westfield Ward where he was first elected in 2011. He had moved to the City from Plymouth where he had been a Councillor for 5 years.

Living on the other side of the river was a major handicap, but this seemed to be exacerbated by his decision to try to hold down an outside job (as head of Public Relations for Yorkshire Water) as well as a Cabinet post. The result was that he was rarely seen in the Westfield area.

Although invited, he failed to attend many residents’ association meetings.

Following Labour’s Westfield by election defeat in October, Williams announced that he was abandoning the ward altogether and he will apparently now  seek a seat in the Heworth ward (where he lives) in the May polls.

At a City level, he has had a low profile role although a failure to address customer service issues at the new West Offices together with an apparent lack of willingness to publish meaningful performance management data,  means that he will start off with several questions marks about his priorities.

Labour now say they will stop this kind of attack

More worryingly, he was also heavily implicated in the plot to hound a respected charity worker out of his job earlier in the year.

In today’s Press, Williams makes a point of praising the work of James Alexander. So perhaps little has really changed? 

He also admits, though, some of  Labour’s mistakes,

“Too often our politics has been done by attacking individuals and negative campaigning, which leaves residents cold” !!!

LibDem Council Group Leader Keith Aspden has commented on the Labour decision

“I welcome Dafydd to his new role. Since 2011 the problems in the Labour Cabinet have gone deeper than the leader. Dafydd Williams has been part of this Cabinet since day one and was directly responsible for the unpopular decision to ignore the views of 2,500 local residents and close Beckfield Lane Tip in 2012.

“I hope that we will see meaningful change in his group’s policies. Key issues such as plans to close Yearsley Pool should be re-examined and the council must start listening and engaging with residents again.

“The new leader must also begin to repair the damage done by the botched Lendal Bridge trial and I urge him to support a Liberal Democrat motion to repay all the fines at December’s Full Council meeting. This will be his first test as leader and will show whether things have really changed in the Labour Group.”

Cllr Williams will need to work 24/7 now to make up for lost time. A decision to break his links with Yorkshire Water – where there could be a conflict of interest – would be a good step.